I never knew that! - take 2

Well, the old iPhone did have the mic on the headphones....I wonder where mine ended up as I was only using iPod ones....

Fact number 2 I found out today is the mic also has an answer / hang-up switch on it. I truly feel a right royal twit for not noticing this before. I'm normally well observant with gadgets!

On a side-note. iChoose 1.1 is in the App Store now and we are awaiting 1.1.1 to be confirmed.

Keane delight at Liverpool switch

Yes! As a Liverpool fan, the signing of Robbie Keane is fantastic news. He's a quality player and, with a little luck, the forward duo of Torres and Keane may, just may, allow us to finally challenge for the title this season.

Over at the BBC: Keane delight at Liverpool switch

iChoose update #2 - version 1.1

We have submitted version 1.1 of iChoose to Apple for placement on the iTunes App Store, and it is currently 'In Review'.

Although the added animations and graphical updates make iChoose even more of a must-have iPhone app, there is a 'minor' issue with the randomness of the choices it makes. My fault completely and it has already been fixed for version 1.1.1

Unfortunately, we are unable to update iChoose further until Apple has approved the version 1.1 submission. We are currently trying to work with Apple to get this resolved, and hope that we can get version 1.1 revoked before it appears on iTunes.

If you do end up getting version 1.1 as a free update, then don't worry - version 1.1.1 will follow as soon as we can get it through the submission process.

Here is a (low-quality) preview movie of iChoose version 1.1 / version 1.1.1 (QuickTime required)

I never knew that!

Shows how much attention we sometimes take.

Here I am playing with the iPhone again and get my headphones out. I had not really used them and went to adjust them (the slider on the ear cables) and found I could not. Hang I thought - what's that though....

Oh - it's a mic! Well, I never knew that - I always wanted a mic on my headphones and now I have. Did the old iPhone have one - I'm not sure but I know now.

Great!

iChoose update

"Worth the download. Simple and easy to use."
- Bradz Mckz

"It could have animations, etc, but for a free app, I didn't expect any so I wasn't bothered. It is functional and looks good so I can't fault it."
- Dan_Da_Dude

iChoose has been pretty well received - which is nice. It is (at the time of writing) the 2nd most popular 'Dice Game' on the App Store, the 13th most popular Entertainment app, the 5th most popular 'Family Game' and the 32nd most popular free app of all.

There have been four reviews so far, two of which are 5 stars (the other two are 3 stars). Unfortunately, we can't tell the number of downloads, which is a shame because it would've been a useful guide as to the App Store popularity amongst iPhone and iPod touch owners.

As a little reward for all of those who have downloaded - version 1.1 is coming tomorrow and will add animation to the Coin Toss and Yes/No decision maker, amongst other minor changes.

(When I say 'coming tomorrow' I mean that it'll be submitted to Apple to approve for the App Store tomorrow - it may take longer to actually appear).

And, finally...

iChoose is now (finally) available on the iTunes App Store!

It's taken about a week to get it there, which is far from ideal, but it is there now. Please download it. Thank you.

iChoose is really just a demonstration app, put together as part of our learning of the iPhone SDK, although it really is quite useful to have on your iPhone. We plan to release other, more substantial, iPhone apps soon.

Passed me by

"That version of her is dead," he explained to Bernard Cribbins. "Because if she remembers, she'll burn up."

"That's a bit of a swizz," said Bernard Cribbins. "I hope you have delivered a suitably cathartic scene elsewhere, in which the pent-up emotion of viewers can be safely discharged?"

"I have indeed," said the last son of Gallifrey. "I sent Rose back to her universe, never to return, with the human version of me that Donna created when she hybridised herself."

"That must have been quite sad, and creepy at the same time," said Bernard Cribbins.

"It was," replied the Doctor. "But it was set in the middle of Bad Wolf Bay and created a much-needed moment of reflection amid all the hurly-burly. And everyone was jolly good in it, so I think we got away with it."

"Did it explain why Rose hash been shpeaking like thish shinsh she got back?" said Bernard Cribbins. "Hash she had orthodontic work done, or what?"

"No," said the Doctor. "It was the one thing that defied explanation."

"Oh well," said Bernard Cribbins. "Maybe next year, eh?"

"Or a Christmas special," said the Doctor. "Don't forget the Christmas special. Hopefully we'll all have recovered by then and be ready for some more splendid hokum."


This excellent summarisation/re-write (by Lucy Mangan - she's very nice, and clever) of the events in Journey's End passed me by at the time. Having just read this little gem on The Guardian website, I will say just this... great work Lucy. Really enjoyed reading that.

Read Lucy's full review of Journey's End and the weekend's TV (5th and 6th July) here.

One thing bugging me about the end of Journey's End though... Why didn't The Doctor give Wilf a quick go in the Tardis? Shame on you Doctor, shame on you.

Offering up the bizarre

YouTube (and the internet in general) allows any old nutter (you know, people like me) to put their strange and weird creations to the masses, and thank god for that!. Every now and then you see something really cool and really bizarre. Like this...

Fantastic! caramelldansen!

Happy with O2 UK

I was one of those people who got the original iPhone on the day of release, traveling up to London to pick one up.

When the 3G was announced I also was one of those who tried to order one online with o2 upgrades. I got so far but on the credit-card part their server bombed out with invalid requests.

That left me without my new 3G phone. My options were to either queue at an O2 store and see if I could get one or wait......At this point I could have been annoyed with O2 for having so little stock whilst Apple seemed to have plenty (even though when I was in the Regency store last weekend there was a 5 HOUR queue!!).

I gave O2 a call and a very polite lady said if I wanted to pop into an Apple Store and get a new phone then I could call them back, at that point they would switch things around and transfer my account to the new phone and cancel the old. Slightly dubious and worried I would end up with multiple accounts I decided to try it.

I popped into Apple Southampton yesterday. I went in with the view to purchase a white 16 gig but after seeing how soiled the ones in the shop were I thought I would go for black (I still prefer white!)....and of course, Apple have plenty of stock of 16 Gig iPhones. I sat in a queue for 30 mins and then purchased my nice new 16 Gig Black iPhone (well actually I bought two as I decided to buy my wife one for passing her CTA exams - WELL DONE BY THE WAY! 29% Pass rate and you were one of them. Fantastic). 

All went through fine and when I got home I called O2 Customer Services - within a couple of minutes of explaining all was in order, and after a few hours my contract was cancelled and I was able to place my existing SIM into the new phone. O2 were VERY helpful and VERY polite. I am seriously impressed with them. Good job O2 UK. Easy.

Dear Apple...

"I submitted iChoose (our first iPhone app) to the App Store last Thursday. I appreciate that I made a mistake with the original upload and thank the iTunes Connect Team for the email we received on Saturday telling us that we had a 'Missing Embedded Profile'. As far as I am aware, this problem was fixed early on Saturday (UK time) when I re-uploaded the app through the Application Loader, with the status changing to a reassuring 'In Review'.

However, I see that iChoose is still 'In Review'. Appreciating that demand on the App Store has been high, and there are undoubtably some issues that need to be ironed out, are we really looking at several days before an app gets reviewed and/or accepted? Or, is there a problem of some other kind? I was hopeful that submission would be a lot quicker than it appears to be.

Coming from what has traditionally been a Windows development background (with some dreadful memories of development for Symbian OS thrown in), we have thoroughly enjoyed our limited time with the iPhone SDK so far. It is an excellent environment and device that we look forward to working with a lot more in the future. It is though very sad that we cannot yet see our first, simple, demonstration app in the iTunes App Store!"

Regards etc
Andy from utopia 365 LLP.

iChoose - still 'In Review'...



Yours for a stunning £free - if it ever gets there...

UPDATE 25/07/2008: It's finally on the App Store.

When a fiver was a lot of money...

I am old enough to remember five pounds being a lot of money. Now, I know I am notoriously bad when it comes to understanding the prices of things and recognising the value of money. I tend to only spend notes rather than digging around for coins - but really, £7 for 20 ciggies, a copy of The Guardian and the Daily Mirror! The world's gone mad!

Next thing we know a pint will be costing nearly 4 quid - hang on...

Time...

Some people have asked me in the past about what it's like stepping out with someone to start a business. My answer - "Fantastic".

Others have said " Your mad! The economy is the worst it has been, and the recession gets deeper and deeper".  My view - if you wait for things to work out around you then you'll never do it. There will always be an excuse or an issue.

If you have a yearning to try something then the last thing you want is a regret later in life, a "what if" moment. It's better to screw up trying something than screw up in not trying something.

As for us - nearly 4 months on things are going really well. Our biggest problem is Time, or rather lack of. We have so many projects we want to work on and get involved with but finding the time to pursue them is difficult. We don't even have time to update our own site at the moment. Being busy is good though.

We are excited about our iPhone apps. utopia Solitaire is looking fabulous. The web-app version proved to be the most successful version and the native one we hope will do the same. From what I have seen compared to others though, users should appreciate the attention to detail and emphasis on it working simply. Expect it to appear in iTunes soon.

23/07/2008 by Andy: Well, hopefully you can expect to see utopia solitaire on iTunes soon, anyway... It's a bit of a git getting apps submitted! We're still waiting to get iChoose approved - several days after submission! I've just emailed Apple and hope to get some kind of response soon. :-(

A special place

MotoGP is stateside this weekend for the Red Bull U.S. Grand Prix, at Laguna Seca,

Laguna Seca is a special place, probably the best damned circuit in the world. It's fabulous and always provided thrilling entertainment for the MotoGP bikes. You really should watch this one!

British Eurosport viewers can see the 2nd practice session, the qualifying session and the race lice - and the BBC have live coverage of the race.



British Eurosport:

Friday 18/07/2008 21:45: Live practice
Saturday 19/07/2008 21:45: Live qualifying
Sunday 20/07/2008 21:45: Live race

BBC 2:

Sunday 20/07/2008 21:45: Live race

utopia solitaire... native

We've been busy working on the native version of utopia solitaire, and it's coming together fine. Here it is running in the iPhone simulator.



The native iPhone and iPod touch version of utopia solitaire should be launching on the App Store next week, featuring the same great gameplay as the web app version, with a few additions, improvements and tweaks.

Getting free video content onto your iPhone and Touch

I have been using YouTube to get some guitar lessons for my acoustic - there are some excellent resources available and some of the top tutors will post lessons on there.

That's fine for when I'm sat in front of my computer and have a web connection - but if I am out and about I don't have that luxury.

This is where TubeTV steps in....

TubeTV allows you to search, play and download YouTube videos. When you download, it converts them into an iTunes format where you can then sync onto your iPhone or iPod Touch. Great - I can now go anywhere - plug my headphones in while watching the lessons.

Of course - there is enough on YouTube to keep anyone entertained. If you have an iPhone or an iPod Touch and a Mac then TubeTV is a nifty bit of software worth having.... oh and it's free! (Donation Ware).

There is a nice piece of software out there to do the same with the excellent BBC iPlayer service, but unfortunately after a few changes at BBC the developer has to re-do some parts to get it working again. I hope this happens as again, this was a great bit of software that really works well for the iPhone and Touch.

I am not currently aware of a similar solution for services like HULU - let me know if there are any.

Gone native!

Finally, I had a bit of a chance to play with the iPhone SDK yesterday afternoon and the result is our first native iPhone App! That's right, Talee Talee's iChoose web app has gone native.

It may not the greatest app in the world but it's free and quite handy sometimes. The same Yes/No decision maker, Coin Toss and Dice roll features can be found in the native version.

Expect to see it on iTunes in the next day or so.


UPDATE 18/07/2008: OK, a couple of days shouting at my Mac cos I've been being a bit slow (or thick). I've finally managed to work out how the hell you get your app signed properly for distribution! and iChoose has been submitted for approval to the App Store., although rather worryingly iTunes Connect is still saying 'Waiting for upload...' even though I have successfully uploaded it twice with the Application Loader. Hopefully (fingers crossed) that will change soon and be 'Under review' or something.

UPDATE #2 18/07/2008: A Card Choice option has been added to iChoose, this will randomly select a playing card for you and can be used for countless entertainment purposes, such as playing Higher or Lower etc.

UPDATE #3 19/07/2008: Surprise, surprise, it was my fault that iChoose was still showing as 'Waiting for upload...' even though I had uploaded it. I was building it wrong and didn't have the required embeded.mobileprovision in the .app. It was there once - honest! A quick check on the build settings, a re-build, a re-upload and we're now "In Review".

iPhone apps

Things are starting to calm down with the iPhones now (although there is still a serious shortage in the UK  for existing customers). The app store is growing and I have spent a few days playing with some iPhone apps.

Some are just plain ridiculous - and they have the cheek to charge money for them. Others are fantastic (free and paid-for). 

I have just got myself setup on airMe - this is going to allow me to update people of my progress when I undertake the London to Paris cycle in September. I also use the free Twitter app "Twittelator" to keep our twitter feed up-to-date. Both great apps and free.

We'll be in the app store soon with some Free and Paid for apps.... watch this space.

Wasted!

How on earth did he think he'd be able to blag it? This ref is wasted! :-)

BBC video link: 'Drunk' referee shown red card

Luton Lunacy

"It's like moving into the house of someone who has robbed a bank, being arrested for the crime yourself, being forced to plead guilty and then being sent to prison"

hatter 28 on the BBC 606 message boards

Luton Town are to start the new season with a staggering -30 points. They need 10 wins to have no points, and are almost certainly destined to be relegated (1/10 on with most bookies) from the football league because of it.

Having been docked 10 points last season for going into administration, the club were docked another 10 points last month for the start of this season, after being found guilty of paying agents via 3rd parties. A further 20 points have now been deducted because the club have "failed to satisfy the League's insolvency rules".

In just over 6 months the club have been docked 40 points.

Of course the Football League need to try and ensure that the clubs within it's leagues are capable of competing on equal grounds. It can be unfair for a club to go into administration and gain an intentional advantage because of bad management. But come on, Luton are obviously a club that have been in real trouble. A club that are soon to be taken over by a new consortium (LT2020) who have had nothing to do with the charges for which the club have been found guilty, they have in fact been open and honest with the footballing authorities and tried their damndest to prevent this from happening. Do they not deserve a chance to get the club back up off the floor again?

Football League chairman Brian Mawhinney believes the board had little option but to take a strong line with Luton.

"The board's primary responsibility is to protect the integrity of their competitions," said Mahwinney.

How can starting a team with -30 points protect the integrity of the competition? All that happens is the fans suffer, the club suffers even further and the Football League suffers because they are running competitions that contain teams which have little or no chance of being able to compete.

We are very fortunate in this country to have such a strong football pyramid - to most fans (of all clubs) the 90+ clubs in the top four divisions are essential to football in this country, it's our history, and our pride. Other countries do not have what we have in terms of depth in our lower leagues. That needs to be protected and quickly, because in the next few years we are going to see clubs going out of business left, right, and centre.

Luton Town, -30 points. No laws of the land have been broken and nobody is going to jail. Nobody currently at the club is being accused of anything. Who's being punished?

Moral Superiority

It's a very British thing.

If you walk around town in the afternoon saying 'hello' to complete strangers, you are judged to be insane - however, early in the morning, before the rush hour, when the streets are quiet, us Brits quite happily walk around saying 'good morning' to all kinds of strangers.

I think the phenomenon is because of the British belief that one has moral superiority if one gets up earlier than others. The 'good morning' is code for 'aren't we better than they are'.

mobileMe goes live

MobileMe goes live!

I for one and very happy about this. Along with the new iPhone it solves a lot of my issues.

Great.

MobileMe

Looks like the transfer is taking place from .Mac to MobileMe....

British GP 2008

Here is some video from the Friday practice session (when it was nice!)

Lewis Hamilton Sailing Victory

A couple of weeks ago Lewis Hamilton was being criticised for taking part in the 'Round the Isle' sailing race (Isle of White).

The press said he should be concentrating on getting his tittle back on track, and spending less time doing all these PR stunts.

Little did anyone know that Lewis was actually training for the GB Silverstone 2008 F1 race. The skills he learnt sailing came into full effect around Silverstone on race day as he masterfully sailed his car around what probably seemed an ocean to the other drivers!

Well done Lewis. We were there and we LOVED it!

02 Rolls out iPhone 3G upgrades

Today, O2 began their iPhone 3G roll-out by texting customers  advising them that they could visit their upgrades page and 'pre-order' the 3G iPhone. 

The phone will be dispatched via courier for the 11th beating the 'queues'.

The whole process is fairly simple - logon, enter your o2 mobile number and they will txt you a code. 

Enter this and then choose your package. Simple.

Off to Silverstone

We're off to Silverstone this weekend (Friday, Saturday and Sunday) to see all the Formula 1 action.

To mark the occasion - Danica's got a little flag to wave over on the website.

UPDATE (07/07/2008): Now removed.

Win *a* Davros Mask!

As the Doctor Who season comes to an end (Doh!) the Radio Times are offering you the chance to win the actual Davros mask used for their cover shots, as worn by Julian Bleach himself.

All you need to do is head over to the site and answer 15 Davros/Dalek related questions to be in with a chance of winning this great prize. And, just in case, you have no idea what the answers are, here you go...

Q: Name the Doctor's companion whose genetic material was absorbed by a Dalek.
A: Rose

Q: Which humanoid race were Davros's original Dalek mutants created from?
A: Kaleds

Q: Which of these is not one of the names of the Cult of Skaro?
A: Kast

Q: Which race has not been subjugated by the Daleks?
A: The Time Lords

Q: Which story featured a transparent or "glass" Dalek?
A: Revelation of the Daleks

Q: What name did Henry Van Statten give his Dalek exhibit?
A: Metaltron

Q: Who was credited with creating the original 1975 Davros mask?
A: John Friedlander

Q: Who shot off Davros's hand?
A: Bostock

Q: What were Davros's first words in Genesis of the Daleks?
A: Observe the test closely, my friend.

Q: Name the 1960s episode that ended with a Dalek emerging from a bank of sand.
A: The Executioners

Q: Which was the first story that specifically mentioned a "Dalek Supreme" on screen?
A: The Chase

Q: In which issue of Radio Times did the word "Dalek" first appear in print?
A: 28 Dec 1963-3 Jan 1964

Q: In draft scripts which rare mineral formed the core of the Daleks' Time Destructor?
A: Vitaranium

Q: Who did original Davros actor Michael Wisher base his performance on?
A: Bertrand Russell

Q: When did a Dalek first state: "I cannot see. Vision impaired"?
A: Planet of the Daleks

Good luck!

You must be aged 18 or over and be a resident of the UK. This unique silicone mask is not a children's toy

me@me.com

Various reports around the internet are now suggesting that Apple's recent purchase of me.com (for MobileMe) is starting to take effect. Apparently some .mac email addresses have been transfered to the .me domain. I haven't tried mine yet though.

So, if you are steve@mac.com, you may also now be steve@me.com.

(If you *really* are steve@mac.com, please give us a call Steve! We want some Apple business. Thanks.)

I'm not sure whether I like MobileMe as a name or the me.com domain. It is exactly the sort of thing I would do - and I'm not sure whether that makes it a great idea, or a very tacky one. But it's Apple, so who am I to argue?

That's no Alien!

It's Posh Spice!

Navy man sees UFO on the M5

(Sorry Victoria. Sorry David. Just a joke)