that canadian girl

I love tech. I truly do. In fact, I’ve got a severe condition called “gadgetitis”, which becomes particularly acute around tech expos and Christmas time where all sorts of new techy goodies are released. And I love beta versions, even though they’re flakier than Paris Hilton. I love sneak previews, even if the app turns out to only be worthy of the TechCrunch deadpool. It’s a terrible addiction and as far as I know, there are no cures.

By the same logic, I almost always say that the more technology, the better. Almost.

Today’s an exception. This is my plea to the RAC, once my most reliable source of up-to-date traffic news, to step away from the Flash animations and return to this old technology called text. The wonderful thing about text is that it’s clear, succint and doesn’t require any fancy plugins. It’s easy to use when on the road with only a phone at hand.

This new animation completely fails from a usability point of view:

1. It doesn’t respect the KISS rule: Keeping it simple means it’s more widely accessible. Not everyone has Flash enabled. My iPhone certainly doesn’t. :S
2. It’s utterly useless to someone who isn’t local. Very few cities, towns and villages are identified, no matter how close you zoom in. Why aren’t the primary non-motorway roads identified? It’s certainly not because the map is too cluttered!
3. The usefulness of the information displayed is questionable, especially in comparison to the detailed alternative that used to be available. Is the slowdown due to sheer traffic density or are we dealing with a 6 car pile-up where the motorway might get closed? That’s far more likely to affect my decision of what to do next than telling me vehicles are travelling at 10mph.
4. The colours, which represent severity of traffic, aren’t accompanied by a legend, so the user has to guess what the scale is!

With the holidays coming and more people on motorways driving long distances to see family and friends, it can be a lifeline, helping us make a quick decision on whether a detour is needed. I’m afraid that the RAC designers didn’t do their homework here. Back to the drawing board, guys!

[Crossposted to the Taptu blog here!]

Sorry if posting’s been a bit on the lean side recently, I’ve been, shall we say, rather busy. So here’s the past two weeks in summary…

• We got kittens, we got kittens, we got kittens! I’ve been spending nearly every evening entertaining them myself while teasing them with a silly stick with a green feather at the end.
• I went to Paris for a very interesting Mobile Monday event, where Bob presented Taptu to the French and Zazie serenaded everyone.
• I bought an iPhone. Yup. I was at the Cambridge O2 store on launch day. There was a big queue of like… 20 of us. Not a huge hit with the plebs, but I’m absolutely in love with it.
• I went to the Future of Mobile conference, saw the usual suspects and met some new people while seeing Powerpoint slides being blown up bigger than ever before.
• We’ve put our house on the market and have put an offer in on a bigger house just down the road. Comes with it, some serious tidying of the house in order to make it vaguely presentable to potential buyers!
• Did I mention I got some kittens?

Right well… Good night my lovelies!

When the iPhone came out in the US, I was drooling at the thought of getting one myself. When the UK contract deals were announced, and I started hearing about the difficulties people were having as far as upgrading to 1.1.1 while keeping their hacks, I got cold feet. I convinced myself that while I’m entirely unhappy with my N95’s performance, the iPhone wasn’t the solution to my phone woes.

I listened to friends reminding me that the iPhone was so much more limited than S60 phones, and that I’d miss the freedom if I took the plunge. I heeded their warnings and thought I’d make a personal short (very short) list of my drop-dead minimum requirements for a phone and try to take a level-headed look at the situation. Cost issues aside, the iPhone meets all my requirements.

1. Faster camera than on my current phone: Well, that’s not hard to beat… To take the picture above and transfer it to my computer, the N95 took a couple of minutes. So much for catching that popstar driving by or a friend’s silly face at the pub. They’ll have finished their pint and gone home before the camera wakes up. Of course, the camera isn’t as high-quality, but then if I want quality, I’ll take the Canon 350D along instead!
2. Better battery life than on my current phone: Again, an easy box to tick. My N95, with relatively heavy use, died in just over two hours last Friday. About 30-45 minutes were spent using the Jaiku application, a few emails were checked and a few phone calls made. But TWO HOURS? I need to be confident that I can go out on my own, and still have a way to ring home if something goes wrong.
3. Jaiku works fine: This one could be debated, seeing as there is no iPhone variant of Jaiku available at the moment. However, the m.jaiku.com version works fine, albeit without the flashiness of iPhone-specific sites. [Note: I used Jaiku more as an example rather than a specific must-have. Social network sites in general need to work well for me]
4. WordPress admin area works - comment moderation in particular: While my blog doesn’t get masses of comments, I like to know I can moderate them as needed. I’ve only had a limited opportunity to play with my WordPress admin section, but everything seems to be in working order. Doubt I’ll ever do much actual blogging from my phone, but moderating, correcting and updating entries does matter to me.
5. Comfortably does email and hitchlessly syncs with iCal: No question there, box totally ticked.
6. Painless upload of pics to Flickr: That’s one area where I have to admit the N95 does a fantastic job - if a bit slowly. The integrated Flickr uploader is one of my current phone’s best features, and I use it nearly daily. As I currently understand it, the iPhone would require me to email the photo over to Flickr, rather than do a web upload, but I can cope with that.

Conclusion: I want one. I really do.

I’m thankful that I don’t live in Canada anymore, as the contract with Rogers is a three year one, which is pants-on-head retarded and batshit insane, to put it simply. A three year contract is like… being married! And god knows I have no interest in marrying either Rogers, AT&T, or O2 in the UK for that matter.

So aside from the price issue - O2’s contracts aren’t exactly a bargain - the iPhone meets my requirements. I’m damn tempted to get one but I’m currently tied into a T-Mobile contract, so headaches ahead if I want to move my phone number over.

Ugh, it’s a hard life being such a gadget whore sometimes…

For making conversations like this possible.

Steve Jobs writes an open letter to all iPhone owners today, offering them all $100 gift certificate in return for their loyal, early adoption.

Within hours, Robert Scoble has responded with his own open letter of what he’d like instead of $100.

On the eve of the launch of the iPhone in the US, I thought I’d finally come out clean with my views on it.

[Yes, I know you’re all sick to death of hearing about the iPhone, but bear with me; I’ve been quiet about it since the day it was announced, and even today, I haven’t completely made up my mind on how I feel about it, and I need to verbalise my thoughts.]

It’s going to be a shiny, sleek and unique gadget. It’s going to take the world by storm, and wallets by the throat. We’re all going to drool over it, have a flick at the screen and a poke at the SDK (well not me, but you know…) Oh and we’re going to hear about it for a few more bloody months…

I want to wish the iPhone into being as good as we all hope it will be, but I can’t help but have some reservations.

First, that’s one great big screen to try and protect. Don’t know about you, but my phone, my keys and my lipglosses often have happy little tea parties in the bottom of my handbag, and I’m not sure the iPhone would be keen on the company. Granted the plastic screen has been replaced with a tougher glass one, but even while protected in a big iPod sock-type-thing, it’s a big screen against which pressure can be applied by a not-so-careful owner.

Also, the battery life is bound to be pretty poor with such a screen to power, regardless of their claims (scroll down this article for the comparison). I already found Shitbrick* and my N95 to suck the life out of the battery something senseless the moment I used the web browser, so while they’ve upped the claimed battery life, I struggle to believe that it’ll really be that great.

But my main concern is really, honestly… just how long it’ll be before I can get my greasy mitts on an iPhone… Not necessarily OWN one, but have a good little play for a few days and decide whether we’re made for each other.

Until then, however, I’m thoroughly enjoying the company of my wonderful and versatile N95. *cradles N95 in her arms* Don’t worry you’re not going anywhere anytime soon, little thing! It’s lived up to expectations, and continued to amaze me. Will the iPhone also live up to expectations?

Well, I guess we’ll find out tomorrow morning, won’t we?

[* That’s the loving name I gave to my N70 after it started throwing a wobbly at random, telling me to “Close down applications. Running out of memory!” when nothing was open, then being too busy throwing that wobbly to let me calm it down. What a pile of crap, paperweight at best!]