Mike Meredith

It’s Not The Web Stupid!

Jan 252010

According to an article from The Register, there has been a study to show that people in Britain rarely use their smartphones to “connect to the Internet”, and in the very next sentence mentions “surfing the web”. Well which one do they mean ?

Yes there is a difference, and that difference is important as we’ll go on to find out …

The exception to the trend are iPhone users who do use their smartphones to connect to the Internet more than other smartphone users. As an iPhone user myself, I can point out two things that to anyone who thinks that “accessing the Internet” and “surfing the web” are the same thing appears to be contradictory :-

I very rarely browse the web on the iPhone.
I frequently connect to the Internet using different applications on the iPhone – in particular instant messaging, email, and various reference tools (such as Wikipanion).

Now that’s got most of the dumb IT industry analysts going “Uh?”.

The reason that nobody browses the web on a smartphone is that the screen is just too small. Ok, the iPhone screen is pretty nice, but it is still too small for browsing the web – all that pinching in and out so you can see the web page as a whole and then read the content, is just a little tedious. And why not wait a few minutes until you have access to a better screen ?

Where the Internet usage comes from are the little applications that effectively present the Internet in an appropriate way for such a small screen – the map that shows the nearest bars, the search tool that looks up what you enter in a dictionary, in Wikipedia, etc. And of course instant messaging and VoIP.

Apple’s iSlate And Other Tablets: Hit or Miss ?

Computing No Responses »

Jan 252010

For those coming by a bit late, this was written before the Apple “iSlate” (if it gets called that) is released. I am not intending to update this when it does get released – making changes to star-gazing blog entries after the event comes close to cheating.

The suspicion is that Apple’s new tablet computer will be a scaled up iPhone rather than a scaled down Macbook, although what difference this makes when both run essentially the same operating system is open to question (for those who question this, have you logged into a jail-broken iPhone? No? Well you don’t know what you’re talking about then). After all a number of Hackintosh people have put OSX onto tablet PCs to roll their own iSlates complete with handwriting recognition with software provided in every copy of OSX.

The funny thing about all the fuss about Apple’s new device is that the numerous ARM-based slates that showed up at CES gathered far less fuss that you might expect.

The interesting thing are the number of people who believe Apple could well succeed where other Tablet computers have “failed”. Not everyone believes this of course, although I’m not sure how seriously you need to take someone who believes that Microsoft invented the tablet computer in 2001. After all Microsoft released “Pen Windows” to sabotage GO’s PenPoint OS (and apparently stole many of the basic concepts) way back in 1992!

So have tablet computers really failed ?

Perhaps you do not see A5-A4 sized tablets at every business meeting, but tablets are still widespread in particular markets. It would seem that those declaring doom and despondency have limited visions of what “success” means – if someone makes a profit selling tablet PCs, they are a success.

But those watching Apple are expecting or hoping that Apple will turn the tablet into a mainstream product – to have as much success with their tablet as they have had with their iPhone. Maybe it will and maybe it won’t. It all depends on the whimsical nature of the marketplace.

Do tablet computers have a place in the mainstream ? Quite possibly as long as it is not seen as a competitor to the laptop or the desktop. This is chiefly because the screen size is just not going to be big enough to work in the way we are used to.

There are those who claim that the lack of a keyboard will stop a tablet from succeeding. There are two mistakes here – firstly they are assuming that tablets will be used like laptops. And secondly they are assuming that a large on screen keyboard is not sufficient for the occasional bit of typing – a few instant messaging comments, commenting on a video, etc.

Of course there is nothing stopping you from adding a bluetooth keyboard (or even wired) to a tablet computer. You would need some form of stand to hold the tablet in a laptop configuration – like this (ok that is not really a stand, but you get the idea).

But what will make a tablet computer big is the content – tablets are by their nature devices for consuming content. Reading books, watching videos, browsing the web, etc. The rumour is that Apple is looking to get subsidies for their tablet by going to content creators; the danger with that is that the content creators will expect their investment back and then some – with the risk that they will overprice the content discouraging it’s use.

iPhone: What’s Missing (4) – Turn Off Auto Landscape

iPhone No Responses »

Jan 232010

When you first encounter those iPhone apps which automatically rotate into some form of landscape mode (often with a larger on screen keyboard), you think “Oh cool”. And it seems pretty useful.

Well the landscape mode certainly is, but the automatic rotation between portrait and landscape mode can begin to grate a little – it often seems to activate when you don’t want it to, and refuses to activate when you want it to. Not that it’s the fault of the iPhone really. It is just the our usage of the iPhone is too unpredictable to say that whenever the iPhone is in a landscape orientation that we want to use it in that orientation. We may simply have bent over to scratch a knee and accidentally rotated the iPhone.

It would be nice if the iPhone OS had two additional features :-

The ability to turn off the autorotation feature at a global level.
The ability to manually switch into landscape mode – presumably with some sort of twist gesture on the screen.

Interestingly it seems that others may also agree as I have come across other iPhone apps that do offer the facility to turn off auto-landscape mode.

Harry Potter: The Religious Reactionary Reaction

General, Media No Responses »

Jan 162010

I was previously aware of the religious nutters being scared of the Harry Potter books, but before reading the Wikipedia article on the reaction I was not aware of just how much there was!

Anyone would think that the Harry Potter books were not fiction, and that children are such mindless idiots that they are likely to base their religious choices based on an entertaining story. The allegations that the Harry Potter books promote satanism, the occult, witchcraft, the Wiccan religion, amongst other things (including Christianity!).

These allegations indicate that the knuckle-dragging extremists either did not bother to read the book. or did not understand what was written within. Interestingly one of those bringing about legal action (several times in fact) to get the books banned, Laura Mallory has admitted that she hasn’t actually read the books themselves in their entirety. You do have to wonder why she should actually admit to such a weakness in her case, and why the conversation in the court did not go along the lines of :-

“Have you read the books?”

“No.”

“And you expect to be taken seriously? Case dismissed. <BANG>”

The interesting thing about those who are frothing at the mouth in fury at the Harry Potter books is that they all seem to have one thing in common. Whatever their religion – various forms of Christianity and some Muslims, the one thing they all have in common is that they are the sort of extremists who should not be allowed an kind of access to children in case they brainwash them.

The real mark of stupidity is that there are far more “dangerous” books out there than those written by JK Rowling. Other fantasy books contain far more favourable depictions of witches; with greater criticisms of organised religions. But the drooling idiots of the lunatic fringe of the religious right are not literate enough to realise this.

Haiti: The Speed Of The Response

General, Politics No Responses »

Jan 152010

Before reading further, go and visit http://www.dec.org.uk/ and make a donation.

One of the things that is clear from the current chaos in Haiti approaching nearly four days since the earthquake (and to be fair from other disasters) is that getting aid on the ground takes far too long. This is not supposed to be a criticism of anyone – I’m simply at this stage wondering what the delay is caused by.

Perhaps we have unrealistic expectations of how quickly aid can be sent in – I’m sure that it is a lot harder than we think it should be! I’m sure there will be those throwing criticism at the UN, the Haitian government, etc. all without much in the way of justification.

What are the politics of sending in assistance in situations like this? Normally if US troops were to “go in” to a country to help out n a disaster without permission from the government it would be an act of war – can you imagine how the Chinese government would react ? So normally we can assume that those offering assistance need to obtain permission from the local government.

But what happens when the local government has effectively ceased to operate ? The Haitian government has problems at the best of times, and was effectively unreachable for a while during the immediate aftermath of the earthquake. Did the rescuers have to wait until they could get someone from the government on the phone ? I cannot imagine the UN operating any other way – they are (and in fact should be given their other work) the paragons of diplomatic nicety.

Perhaps governments could consider giving advanced permission along the lines of “Hey! If a really big disaster happens, you’ve got permission to come in and help and we’ll have a nice polite chat about it afterwards”. Do such arrangements already exist ?

The other thing that springs to mind is that there needs to be some way of arranging air transport very rapidly. In this case there is an airport close by, but an airport that is not up to dealing with a such a large influx of cargo planes. In many other cases, there is no convenient airport. Perhaps it is not possible to build a temporary airport in a matter of hours, but it is something that needs someone to think about a way of trying. At the very least it should be possible to “upgrade” the air traffic control system equipment in a matter of hours – which appears to have been a problem in Haiti.

People can survive without food for quite a while, and without water for not so very long, but those in need of medical help need it now. Do we need to consider parachuting in small medical stabilisation teams ? Obviously a full field hospital would be preferred but a small team (or many of them) with supplies that can be carried can at least stabilise causalities to give them a better chance of surviving until more comprehensive facilities are available.

Similarly in the event of earthquakes, parachuting in search and rescue teams with minimal equipment could accomplish quite a bit even before heavy equipment is available.

There is also the psychological effect of having someone on the ground. Even if those early aid workers cannot accomplish much for those who are fit and healthy, they at do least indicate that help is coming and that they have not been forgotten.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, we need a more military approach to emergency aid in situations like this. And I’m not exactly a fan of the military! The military are used to reacting very rapidly to a limited extent with rapid reaction forces available to go into action on very short notice. If the UN were given the resources to setup an organisation that would work in the same way (but with different aims) it would be very much more effective at responding to disasters like this.

After all, we use the normal military in situations like this – who aren’t even properly equipped for performing this job!

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