Ohhhh this gets me thinking.
Nobody has mentioned yet who is making this damned thing! Mostly the discussions have been around the fact that there are two of these going to be in existence (forgetting the obvious colour options to come), the fact that one will be ARM and run Windows 8 RT (Real Tablets? Rocking Testosterone? Rampant Tripe? Really Terrible?) and the other will be a Pro model. It’s as if Microsoft have spent all their time on gadget blogs and thought “The fanboys all talk of wanting an iPad Pro. Why don’t we make a Windows 8 Surface Tablet Pro 2012 first!” Read More »
This post was written by Mark Thomson
Tuesday, June 19th, 2012
Remember when a Nokia was thee phone to have?
I sure as hell do. I remember vividly, scrimping and saving together what I could to get an imported Nokia 8810 some 11 / 12 years ago. You know what, I got one and it was amazing. That feeling continued with my love affair with Nokia that saw many trinkets such as the 8850 (I even have a 8890 stashed away), a 9210i Communicator and an N95 fresh out of the factory. There were even feature phones in this time; 3210, 3310, 3330, 6200.
I was a Nokia fan boy. Read More »
This post was written by Mark Thomson
Wednesday, October 26th, 2011
2007 seems so long ago.
Before I got my first iPhone (16GB version launched in the UK some months after the UK launch of the 8GB) of the original, I was a Nokia fanboy to the highest degree. 
My phone before iPhone was a N95 and it was the most advanced thing in the world. 3G connectivity, 5Mp Camera, GPS, Video and music controls, great battery life, expandable memory and build quality that can only be expected from Nokia. Sure, I needed to update the software no less than 8 times before it became usable in every day life. But even this wasn’t an issue, as at the time, software didn’t dominated the mobile experience, hardware did.
Then iOS (formally iPhone OS) came and everything changed.
Now I shan’t go over the the history of the last 4 years of iPhone software and hardware development (I can some other time) but what i will bring in to light is that the more and more exposure to Android, the more I feel like iOS is about 2 years behind where it needs to be.
It’s funny how something never bothers you until its pointed out. Getting a text on an iPhone can be a very intrusive experience, especially when mid game ( and the iDevices are rapidly becoming thee mobile gaming platform) watching a youtube video or even composing an email. I never noticed how much it gets in the way, until I used a HTC Desire HD running android. The phones owner received 2 texts, an email and 2 news updates while I was in the process of browsing the web for something. Like the fantastic Growl for Mac (If you don’t have this, go get it now) that enables you to have an out the way notification, letting you know that new information has arrived.
It’s widely believed that in iOS5 we’ll be seeing a hefty update to the process of notifications and i hope we do. Its a sorry state of affairs when Apple can’t right what Microsoft can in OutLook.
The other thing I’d love to see addressed? the UI. the iOS User Interface (UI) has remained a constant to the point of being replicated so often across platforms, its like what image reflections were 3 years ago.
After changing my default Twitter client to Tweetbot from the tapolicus guys, I said; “I wish these guys could do a skin for the whole of iOS”
Now, with the Back to the Mac event, apple stated that they were taking what they had learnt from iOS and moving it over to OS X 10.7 Lion. Fine. Great. I love using gestures on my iDevices, I shall love them on my desktop – give me an excuse to by a Magic Trackpad. But why should this be a one way street. The look of Lion seems to be the completion of the smoothing of the OS to use a grey, metallic look, with splashes of colour in some of the buttons. Why not offer this in iOS? The ability to change, all be it slightly, the colour theming of the UI.
These are just two of my thoughts regarding the future of iOS and who knows what Apple have baked up for their WWDC in a couple of weeks. I for one, as always, wait with baited breath.
This post was written by Mark Thomson
Friday, May 27th, 2011
