TubeStatus on iPhone

Further to my call for a public API from Transport For London (for journey planning and live status), I found an App called 'TubeStatus' in the Apple/iTunes App Store on the weekend, that seems to scrape current status + notices for the Underground and Docklands Light Railway.

So there's part of my wish come true! I think this is being achieved by Screen Scraping tho, which isn't very elegant for the future (if the TFL site changes, the dev needs to be pretty quick to update their app), tho I might be wrong!

Thanks to Malcolm Barkley.. can't find a website for ya tho - shout out if you want a link Malcolm!

Oh yeah, I finally upgraded to the 3G iPhone this weekend too, as can be seen by the screenshot above. Ended up sticking with 8GB, as I was struggling to find a 16GB in Central London, without queuing or ordering then going back every day to see if it was in... (as one guy did in one of the O2 stores I was in). As to the old 1st gen iPhone, it's still in use, but I'm keeping quiet about that :)

iPhone 2.0 home screen

Having a bit of fun taking screenshots on the iPhone. Will dig up the
link on how to take em when I remember where I found it!

Edit: found the link! Thanks to Mac OS H Hints for this one.

.mac is dead. long live mobile me!

Been seeing a few comments about the new .mac replacement, 'MobileMe' site being up intermittently today.

Just tried to get into www.mac.com (the old .mac website), but it's down for maintainence right now, and my iDisk just went offline also (not that I've ever really used my iDisk ever, so it's not a problem!). I guess the switch over to MobileMe is kicking in so I'm hoping to wake up tomorrow and have a bunch of new software to install:

• MobileMe app/prefs/etc (whatever sync software they need)
• The iPhone 2.0 software (this is the 'biggie' for me!)
  
• All the apps I've already downloaded (free ones only! Twitteriffic, Exposure, Facebook and the Apple Remote control software) from the iTunes App Store - already upgraded my iTunes today. Weirdly, doing a 'Check for Update' from iTunes didn't find the update, but going through Mac Software Update found it. Strange...
  

Big day for Apple tomorrow - lots of new stuff coming out on the same day all over the world. Don't think I can be bothered hanging about outside an O2 shop in the early hours of the morning to fight for an iPhone 3G upgrade, I'll just grab the 2.0 software, and wait until the 3G furor dies down a bit. There goes my early adopter status!

iPhone :: Native Blogger App?

Just been checking out the TypePad app for iPhone, and it looks really nice. Write blog posts, post photos etc in a really nice simple interface.

Does Blogger have an app in the works? Is it time for someone else to write one using the Blogger API (no idea how good the API even is!).

The idea app would need:

1. A nice blog post editor - similar functionality to the current Blogger Rich Text post editor
2. Ability to label posts
3. Comment Moderation would be nice
4. Ability to upload photos from the iPhone camera or photo library

Have I just not spotted the right app yet? I searched for Blogger on iTunes, but no luck.

I WANT MY 3G!

O2 have made a total shambles of the iPhone launch, and they've pretty much said so on their website.

The deal is: new customers (who don't have an O2 contract) can just toodle on down to any Apple store, grab a phone, and set up their new contract instore. However, existing iPhone users who have been 'offered' free or cheap upgrades to the 3G version HAVE to go into an O2 or Carphone Warehouse store to do the upgrade.

O2 in their blinding wisdom quietly opened up their website for 'pre orders' without telling any of the existing customers (incl me), so in 3 hours they managed to presell all of their stock to people wanting new contracts.

And the kicker, is this quote from the O2 website:

We are experiencing unprecedented demand for the device and whilst we are confident that all customers who want iPhone 3G will get one by the end of this summer, initial supply is limited and will be for some weeks... On average, we will only have a few dozen iPhone 3Gs per store... Some O2 stores will open at 8.02am on Friday, others a bit later.

Right... so I can turn up at a store on Friday at 8.02 am (random!), and *hope* they will open up. Then fight for one of the few dozen phones in store, and probably be late for work.

Surely the *logical* option would have been to only sell to existing customers first, via the online store. Then any 'new' iPhone customer can either go to Apple (who probabaly have a bigger stock than O2/CPW), or fight it out after the existing iPhone customers have got theirs.

All in all, this is a total shambles, O2. And one of the reasons I shuddered when I heard O2 would be the sole carrier back at the original UK iPhone launch. I can't stand their slimy sales people (CPW is worse), who try to force you into insurance and accessories bundles, and have totally incorrect information. A friend who has 'preordered' his phone has already started to be billed by O2 before the contract has even started, and on calling them was told his phone should have already arrived (before the launch). Bunch of clowns.

Rant over for now.

Has Vodafone NZ gone crazy?

I can't believe the iPhone tariffs in NZ... [link]. NZ$250 for only 1GB/month of included data? Are they totally crazy?!
I pay £35/month here for unlimited data (GPRS/EDGE, and 3G when it kicks in, plus unlimited wifi at selected wifi providers), the same number of minutes, and 500 texts which is only 100 less than the voda nz plan - the 1GB tariff in NZ converts to about £95 at today's rate.

And I thought O2 were ripping us off in the UK, but that's just ridiculous!

Better sort this out before we move back to NZ (if we ever do!). Things like this going on in NZ really p*ss me off.

Oh and while I'm at it, there is some clown already camped out at the Auckland store, wanting to be the first iPhone 3G owner in the world. Erm... congratulations? [link via Koz's twitter]

living with the iPhone

It's been almost six months since my inital post on buying an iPhone, and it's about time I had a bit of a rant about it.

Things that are great:

The touch interface. Lovin it!

Google maps with the 'locate me' functionality. Very cool, tho I hear in the US they are adding Wifi connections to the 'locate me' functionality to get the location even more precise. Can be a bit random in the City sometimes, showing me anywhere within a 1km radius, which in the City of London can mean the difference between getting a cold beer, and a warm flat beer!

Data on the run - 24/7 email and internet is great. A bit slow at times when stuck on a GPRS connection. And not worrying about the bill is great too!

Things that are annoying:

Safari getting a bit grumpy occasionally and not loading pages or responding to 'clicks'. Sometimes sorted by resetting Safari (holding the 'home' button down for 5 secs until Safari closes), but sometimes I have to resort to a hard reset (power down). Not a biggie, but annoying (will have to check the crash reports when I get home and see if I can spot what's causing it)

HTML emails which are designed for 'wider' screens (yup, some people hard code the width of html elements in emails grrrr) - should be able to flip the screen sideways for these

Some text areas are a bit hard to type in as they don't fit on the screen, so it's often a case of type and hope for the best! Not too sure how that could be solved, perhaps limiting the width of text area fields, or scrolling horizontally as you type?

The endless demos to friends/co-workers/random joes on the street :) (actually, I don't mind too much!)

Things that need improving:

Text messaging! It's pretty basic at the moment - no forwarding of texts, no picture messaging. This really needs looking at, and could be done by software updates.

The camera needs some work. Really bad in low light (gets the shakes), and is slow to take a pic

The included headset/earphones are a bit rubbish. People I'm calling can barely hear me when I talk on them - I might just have a bad copy

mmm iphone UI

there are a few things from the iPhone UI I'ld love to try to implement on a normal html website. Might have to try them out myself - wonder if Apple would be upset with someone reusing their 'design' (or the concepts anyway) in a different context.

the 'slider' for on/off (boolean) type fields - the iPhone has these pretty 'slider' buttons for yes/no on/off etc fields which could probably be implemented with a tweaked version of the Yahoo UI slider - would need some nice images for the 'background' and the slide image. Would need to be still accessable by keyboard tho for tabbing through - wonder if it's possible.

'flicking' a page up and down. guess the only way to do that in today's browsers would be to embed the site into a control of some kind that could handle the 'flick' and click/drag functionality