Posted on the August 19th, 2008 under iPhone by Al
It arrived yesterday.
The packaging was awesome:
Not only did it continue the “skeleton look” into the packaging but it wasn’t the standard hermetically sealed plastic that requires sharp instruments to open. The cardboard outer packaging is easily removed and the inner plactic packaging pops open with your figures. Nice.
My white iPhone before:
and then transformed:
It fits perfectly, the buttons are easily accesses and it looks cool. I have to admit that the white isn’t as white as the iPhone itself but then again Steve Jobs probably spent millions getting the formula for the ultimate white.
I had a hard time deciding between a few of the CapsuleRebel covers. I almost bought two. I may even pick up a second (or third) one for use in different occasions. Maybe.
I’m a beta-whore. I tried to categorize myself as a beta tester, an early adopter, and various other, nicer labels but my wife insists that “beta-whore” fits best. I enjoy technology and feel my jack-of-all-trades skills can be beneficial in a beta test. I sign up for many beta programs and devote more time to some and less to others.
A trend I’m seeing is development by newbies. I don’t mean people new to development/programming, but people who are unfamiliar with using external testers. Based on my experiences, here are a few pointers for those considering the use of beta testers.
Set goals – Are there any specific areas you’d like to have tested? What has changed since the last alpha or beta version? You may not have a list of items for the testers (e.g. if you’re trying to determine how intuitive an app/service is) but if you do, let them know.
Set a timeline – How long is the beta period? One week, one month, one Google-beta (i.e. indefinitely)? Give the testers a timeframe on when to report issues they uncover (e.g. as they occur, once a day, once a week, etc). Keep in mind that beta testers have lives and jobs outside of testing your app/service.
Define how you want feedback - Should the beta testers email you with their findings? Do you have a forum or GetSatisfaction page set up? Be clear and upfront.
Don’t rush the beta period - Understandably, you want to get the app/service out there but broken software does more harm than good. At the same time don’t be a Google. I believe that short beta periods (e.g. 24-48 hours) are too short to be useful.
Pick good beta testers – Sure, I’d like to beta test a lot of apps and services, but that does not make me the right choice. Be as selective as you can. If you’re running back-to-back beta periods, be sure to include/invite people that have provide valuable feedback in the past. If a beta tester’s first actions is to blog that they’re beta testing something, their interests may be self-indulgent. Beta testers should be helping make the app/service better.
Invite me to be a beta tester - Sure it may contradict #5, but you won’t know until I’ve had a chance to beta test your app/service.
I’ve been one of the lucky ones. I’ve had pratically no problems with the 3G iPhone and only minor issues with a couple of apps since Day 1. Then I installed the iTunes 7.7.1 update when it came out. That’s when the troubles started. Luckily, the iPhone itself hasn’t been affected but the iPhone with iTunes experience has degraded.
It started with a constant and reproducible crash of the MDCrashReportTool. The following sequence causes the crash:
One of the great features of Twitter is that you can access and post it in various ways: from the website, from a dedicated client on Mac or PC, from a cell phone via SMS or mobile app, etc. Maybe someday we’ll see digital cameras with built-in Twitter access. With all of these different access methods, which is the best? Below is my limited evaluation of a few of the apps I’ve used.
But first, I want to mention a feature that no app appears to provide, but I’d really like to see. When a tweet (i.e. a Twitter update or message) is directed to another person using the @reply (where reply is the user’s twitter account name) at the beginning of the message, that message is only displayed to the person it was directed and not display to others, even if you follow the sender. For example, if you follow me (frumpa) and I send a message to @ev none of the applications below will show you that message. The only way you’ll be able to see those messages is if you go the that person’s Twitter page via a browser (e.g. twitter.com/ev). This only occurs if the message starts with @reply. If the @reply is somewhere else in the message everyone sees it. Maybe I’m the minority here but if I’m following someone I want to see all of their messages. Why? Sometimes a message directed to someone else may also be of interest to me, or others.
With Twitter continuing to be so unreliable, I think third party applications such as Twhirl, TweetDeck, Twitterrific and possibly FriendFeed(?), just to name a few, need to add the option to keep a local copy of messages and your Following and Followers list. TweetDeck is already ahead of the game as it keep messages in a local database. But, with Twitter’s latest screw up, in which they inadvertently removed people from following others, the ability to have a backup, export or offline copy of your Following list is very important.
I started using Twinkle, an iPhone app, on Thursday night (July 17th) and wrote this post about it. Here are my impressions and what I’ve learned about it after using it for few days.
Twinkle has it’s own network which it uses for its Nearby service. The Nearby service, also a section in the app, manages messages sent through the service. When you send a message from Twinkle, which they call “pings”, it goes to the Twinkle network (i.e. Tapulous servers) where they are stored and then forwarded to Twitter. This requires you to configure Twinkle with a Tapulous user account and, optionally, a Twitter account. You could easily just use the Tapulous account, but not just a Twitter account at this time. This has caused some confusion for people as to where messages are going and why messages are not showing up on Twitter. Although in some cases people didn’t add their Twitter account or don’t have one. In fact, it can cause more confusion if a person has a Twitter account but creates a Tapulous account with a different user name. Confusion in the sense that you can’t follow the user via the Twitter website, or traditional Twitter client since you don’t know their Twitter account name.
The other day Robert Scoble had a Qik video in which he interviewed on of the developers of Twinkle (web link, iTune link) a Twitter client for the iPhone. Yes, yet another Twitter client and yes for the iPhone. Twinkle caught my eye because it’s location-aware.
Unlike Twitterrific and Twittelator which can add a link to your tweet to show your location, Twinkle can show you a feed of tweets by people within a certain radius of you. When it launches it requests the use of the GPS to find your current location.
The default distance to search for “local” tweets is 50 miles but that can be changed.
Like my previous post on this topic, here’s another batch of apps that caught my eye, but this time only focusing on free apps. (Note – links below are iTunes links, not web browser links)
Flashlight (a free version), FlatLux and MyLite – all free
Both are trying to steal market share away from the $1.99 Flashlight app mentioned in the previous post.
Probably not, especially if you’re not a tech-head or willing to bounce around to difference screens to enable and/or disable difference services (e.g. 3G, GPS, WiFi, etc) to manage the battery life on a regular basis.
Who is the iPhone for?
Answer the following questions:
Do you use social services like Twitter, FriendFeed, Brightkite, etc.?
Do you like to quickly and easily send photos to an online photo sharing account such as Flickr?
Do you crave the freedom to check e-mail and surface the web at any time?
Do you want e-mail and webpages to be readable in the small form-factor of a phone?
Do you want a device that can install a plethora of mobile applications and games?
If you answered “yes” to at least half of the above questions then the iPhone, either the original iPhone, the 3G version (again be aware of its hungry power consumption) or the iPod Touch are devices you should consider. The original (non-3G) iPhone is would the bes choice for the average consumer.
