A Fine Boozer

The Red Lion in Sittingbourne makes for a good pint on days the sun shines, and during the hours it actually shines in the courtyard.

Such as today.

Taken using an iPhone 4 and Pro HDR

Employee of the Month!

As with any employee of the month award, we first require some background, so the other employees don't feel to slighted, we need to know just what this employee has done to earn such an accolade. So here we go. 

Friday night I was drinking beers with a couple of friends. (If you're interested I was drinking Budweiser '66', which is an improvement over the pisswater of normal Budweiser in my opinion.) 

We we're making serious inroads into the first beer of the night, the movie has just started, and then the phone rings. It's my friends other half, she's got a flat tyre. Well we could hardly leave her by herself with a flat on a Friday night, and as one of our number was driving and sober anyway we piled into the car and off we went. I took a few beers with me because hey, its Friday, and I'm not the one driving.

We arrive, and she's got all the tools to change the tyre bar one. We need a flathead screwdriver or similar to prise the hubcap out of the centre of her alloys to get to the wheel nuts.

This is a problem... We don't have a screwdriver, there's not a similar tool kept with the jack and iron, so this presents a problem. We're gonna have to go all the way back home for a screwdriver... But then, who should save the day...

Its, an Inanimate Carbon Rod!*

Turns out the pry tip on the edge of the Brewzer beer tool was a perfect fit to get under the hubcap and prise it off, the tyre was successfully changed and off we all went home to more beers. Thank you Brewzer. You not only open my beers, you saved three guys from the embarrassment of being stymied by a hubcap. I can't think of anyone else more deserving in my employ.

*Okay so this technically is a Inanimate Stainless Steel Rod, but if I called it that then The Simpsons gag doesn't work. I'm pretty sure stainless has carbon in it on some level.

So long Ibiza, until next year.

Yes I like Piña Coladas. There was however no rain to get caught in.

Taken at SunSeaBar, I can thoroughly recommend the fish. Especially the dentex. Odd name, really tasty fish.

A Shadow over Milton

Not that I'm saying the people of Milton worship the Deep Ones.*




*Though I wouldn't be surprised.

Man Up.

I was reading my Twitter feed. (As one does these days.) As I did so something posted by the folks over at Picturecool caught my eye, seemed poignant. Someone, who I would love to credit but Picturecool rarely link to the source, had created this image. It was pretty cool but the slogan was a bit harsh for my liking. Hardness, does not necessarily equal goodness, or manliness, in my eyes. 

So I tracked down the original photo (Taken by Robert F. Sargent, I found a copy here.) And I created my own simpler, more straightforward version for my iPad, inspired by the original wallpaper. An iPad wallpaper to remind us all. (Not just the men.) That hey, just get on with whatever you are doing, it's really not that terrible. You could be asked to do much, much more.

(Click for larger size)

THE WORLD IS ENDING!*

*Or maybe your iPhone 4 struggles when your big plates of meat cover the antenna?

So, today Apple issued an iPhone software update that corrects a mistake in the signal strength displayed which goes all the way back to the first iPhone. The day before Apple are holding their first press conference, which is specifically addressing the iPhone 4.

There has been much, much talk of how terrible the iPhone 4's signal is and how Apple must clearly issue a recall to fix this horrifying problem. The death grip has become a thing of legend. And the stink it's caused on the tech blogosphere reminds me of the Facebook privacy hoo-hah from 2 months ago (Remember that? When everyone was angry at Facebook? Swearing to quit using it etc? Yeah, that died a death didn't it?) There's even been rumours that tomorrows press conference is to announce that CEO Steve Jobs is standing down over the whole issue. Which is possibly the most ludicrous thing I've ever heard.

Firstly. The iPhone 4 has been out less than 30 days. If you are that unhappy with your iPhone 4, return it. Secondly, 2 million iPhones have been sold. And I'm not convinced this is as big a problem as is being made out.

But! Apple did release the update, and I installed it, and could finally get the death grip magic touch to actually effect my signal! At home I now saw a drop from five bars to four, and in my local, (a previous blackspot for signal) was able to get the signal to drop from 5 bars to 2 by applying the death grip. However, my iPhone 3G used to be lucky to get 2 bars in my local in the first place, let alone 5, AND usually when not trying to deliberately drop signal I keep my iPhone4 in a case anyway.

My own very unscientific conclusion is; yes, the iPhone4 gets better reception than my old iPhone, and yes, if you hold a phone in a way to cover the antenna, its going to interfere with signal. Try having a conversation via a V3 RAZR with your hand clasped over the plastic bottom and see how well you get on!

Some people are having a death grip problem. But, if a cellphone has only 1 bar signal, you KNOW you're in a bad signal area, and hold the phone accordingly. Once on my old phone, in the middle of nowhere I had to call my bank, no signal, the phone was fine on speaker phone in my hand with 1 bar. The whole 90 seconds it took me to enter all my account details and press the right options and listen to the recorded woman telling me my call was important. That was all fine. As soon as I was through to an operator, turned off the speaker phone, and placed the phone to my head, Call dropped.

My big man noggin blocked all the signal. I really must stop trying to crush walnuts with my man mind while in areas of low signal. But if that Happened when I had five bars I would be fuming! but knowing it was with one bar... I expected it. Apple is too blame here. Artificially enhancing the indicated signal, but not to blame for our own bodies interfering with signal strength.

Bad signal happens, Apple has now provided the information to deal with it. Man up and do so!

Quattro, Vier, Quatre, Cuatro, Fyre, Four.

Four, the number of hours sleep I have been getting each night because of a desire to watch as much World Cup and World Cup highlights as possible?

No, well, yes, but not the four in question. This would of course be the iPhone 4. I've had mine for seven days now, and here's my review.

Yeah, it's pretty awesome.

...

Oh okay okay, you want another blog post about how great it is, here it is. Everyone saw the look of the phone months ago thanks to Gizmodogate but it really stands out in person. it feels solid and well made, with a weight behind it that backs up its price. As mentioned previously in my post comparing the leaked black and white iPhones the new one has a definite 2001 monolith feel about it. The glass back and slender steel sides give the iPhone4 the feel of being carved from a slab of the future itself. It's impressive, and the buttons all click (or in the case of the mute switch, slide.) very responsively.

The screen though, is where the iPhone4 really shines (pun intended). This thing is bananas. You really cannot appreciate just how nice this display is until you see it in person. I always thought the display on my old iPhone 3G was pretty good, but it really does look like arse compared to this. To get an idea of just how big a display apple have managed to squeeze into the 3.5" physical area, check out this wallpaper created by Arron over at Razorianfly.com. The 640 x 960 pixel dimensions take up a helluva lot of space on my desktop machine, yet its crammed into 3.5 inches. Like I said, that is Bananas. Its a bit of a cliché now but the screen really is like print media. Fonts are crisp and clear, images pop out of the screen at you. It's very impressive.

It's definitely a whole heap faster than my iPhone 3G. The new model has the much faster A4 processor used in the iPad, and double the ram of the 3GS, so everything feels really quick to load. Its not significantly faster than my girlfriends 3GS, maybe a second or two at most. Carcassone was a bit of a bother on my 3G, it now opens almost immediately.

The camera is also, excellent. Apple have been pretty clever with this camera. 5MP is not going to blow anyone out of the water here. Sony Ericsson, Samsung, are among just a few of the compaines offering cellphones with 8 and 12MP cameras now, but this 5MP sensor is very very good. Ars technica have put up a very interesting article which goes into depth just what makes the iPhone4's CMOS sensor so good and it goes into more technical depth with regards to sensor size and pixel pitch than I am comfortable with summing up here. fortunately they summed it up for me, and conclude its almost good enough to completely replace a point and shoot for a lot of people, and I would agree. The video recording is certainly enough to replace any Flip video camera  or the ilk. It's smooth and great quality.

It's not all been good times though. There has been a lot of discussion online about antenna problems, and yellowing screens. The yellowing screens apparently resolve themselves over a few days of use, and maybe down to the adhesive used to bond the two layers of the screen together not being cured properly before Foxconn have shipped them, but the antenna problem has become quite noisy on the web, and the butt of many jokes.

It seems the iPhone4 has a 'death spot' that when touched by a finger (or the palm of your hand when on a call) Causes the signal to drop and eventually ends with no service. Try as I might I cannot replicate this effect with my unit. Apparently having a case prevents this from happening, and mine is being kept snug in a Gear4 case bought from O2 on the day of purchase. But even outside of that case, I cannot get my signal to drop.

I can only conclude that: 

1. I have bizarre cyborg hands which are not bridging the gap between antennas electrically. 
2. This is a problem that only manifests when in areas of poor signal anyway. 
3. Perhaps the yellowed displays from a lack of curing time are a sign that Foxconn's QA teams were not up to scratch with a batch or three of iPhone4 and have shipped defective units.

Apple have apparently sold 1.5 million units since launch. Sure there's a lot of people getting the antenna issue, but 1.5 million worth? I don't see the complaints being that high yet. I'm certainly not included in it, my signal has improved. In places like my local where before on the sofas 3G signal was an unlikely fantasy and the dreaded single dot of GPRS data reigned supreme I now pull in solid Edge data, with the occasional pop back up to 3G.

So there we go. Another glowing blog post about the iPhone 4. As I said up top... It's pretty awesome!


UPDATE: Anandtech have an interesting post up regarding the iPhone4 antenna problems after analysing the antennas gain and loss.