Exploding Batteries – Getting More Dangerous

 Computing, General, iPhone  No Responses »
Sep 042009
 

If you are as old as I am, you will recall that batteries have always had problems – a small percentage “deteriorate” and overheat. Although this applies to any batteries, I am thinking mostly of the kind that are found in laptops, media players, phones and the like – not the old cylinder ones used in torches.

In the past, batteries did not contain as much power as they do now – it is something that is gradually increasing over time, and of course we want more power in our batteries so that our gadgets run for longer. Or do we ?

In the past battery problems would do things like melt the case of a mobile phone, but now we hear of laptops bursting into flames, and media players exploding. Seems that the effects of a problem are getting worse at the same time that batteries are holding more power.

Of course this makes sense – the more powerful the battery, the more powerful the effect when it “lets go”. So what happens when batteries become yet more powerful ? What happens when such a battery fault occurs in a large electric vehicle ?

iPhone: What’s Missing (2): Where’s The Keyboard ?

 Computing, iPhone  No Responses »
Jul 122009
 

I’m very fussy about keyboards; perhaps ridiculously so. But I cannot understand the criticism of the virtual keyboard that comes with the iPhone. It takes some getting used to, and the auto correct feature whilst very useful can also be very irritating. Enough so that Apple should probably have a keyboard button marked “turn off auto correct for a while”. But it is perfectly adequate for what it is  – something to do a little text entry from time to time.

So why am I complaining about the lack of a decent keyboard ? Because quite simply if I’m doing any writing (and I don’t at present) on the iPhone, I would like to be able to type at full speed – which for me requires a decent clicky keyboard so I can get up to a reasonable speed (apparently about 120wpm!).

Adding bluetooth drivers to the iPhone should be pretty trivial for Apple after all there are already OSX bluetooth keyboard drivers available, and the iPhone operating system is OSX. So why does Apple not include one ? Sure there’s an excuse for the first release not to include one – Apple wanted to make sure that the phone was rock solid in a totally new market to them. But now?

Surely it cannot be because they feel that releasing such a driver would be an admission that the virtual keyboard is no good. After all, I’m not exactly an enemy of the virtual keyboard, but I want a real keyboard interface for those occasions when one would be useful.

iPhone: What Is Missing (1)

 Computing, iPhone  No Responses »
Jul 122009
 

The iPhone is hardly perfect, although it is quite good for a smartphone. However now we are loading up our iPhones with dozens of added applications, the old swipe-able screen interface needs a bit of care.

The first improvement would be the ability to tag particular screens with names. This would be merely an aid to organisation, but in practice would be very handy. There is plenty of space in the status bar for the “name” of a screen, or Apple could do something funkier involving putting the name onto the background.

Secondly it would be handy to have icons that could “warp” to a particular screen – presumably by name. This would work as a simplistic form of ‘folders’ for the applications.

Finally it would be useful to be able to make certain application icons “sticky” so that they remain available no matter what screen is currently active.

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