Category: iphone

Augmented Reality mashup* Event

Post author By Ed Parsons
Post date October 12, 2009

Hot topic of the moment if you have been tracking application development on the iPhone and Android platforms is Augmented Reality (AR), the ability to display annotated views of the world using a smartphones video camera and GPS.

The excellent team behind the Mashup* events are holding an event later this month and I would recommend it highly if you are in London.

It’s early days still for AR and progress will be limited in the short term by both a lack of data and poor quality digital compass functionality but the potential is huge.

There has been a discussion of the need for AR standards to develop AR applications on the geowanking email list, and there are as usual many existing standards which could be adopted, but it may still be too early for a standardisation process as the real issues of interoperability are not clearly understood yet.

AR is clearly one of the technologies that is moving geospatial data and its representation away from traditional cartography and all its limitations, and it will become something we all take for granted within a few years.

Written and submitted from home, using my home 802.11 network

Android iphone LBS

Contextual Computing and The Informed Traveller

Post author By Ed Parsons
Post date June 29, 2009

I’m speaking next week at the Location and Timing Forum who are holding a special meeting on the informed traveller, in other words providing contextual services to travellers.

Next week the meeting is at the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington, so I won’t really be needing much in the way of contextual services to get me there ..

But in all seriousness I have become to rely at least on the mobile mapping services on both my Android and iPhone to get me to meetings, where once I might have printed off a map from a web mapping service, or in the more distant past used a street atlas, I now just use my phone.

This is of course the most obvious and simple application, the real innovation will come when in addition to location the other context clues about the individual traveller such as time and history are also used in applications.

Written and submitted from the Google Office, London.

Data Policy iphone LBS Thoughts

#Geomob just keeps growing

Post author By Ed Parsons
Post date March 30, 2009
3 Comments on #Geomob just keeps growing

On Friday evening, I went along to the latest meeting of Geomob the developer community event created by Christopher Osborne focused on developments in what used to be called Location Based Services, but which now more sensibly people recognise as mobile applications of GEO technologies.

The key difference from the old days (2 years ago !!) of LBS, is that now the barrier to entry is much lower allowing the hacker community to really start to play and innovate without having to have huge resources behind them.

However despite technologies and services like Fire Eagle, Google Maps, OpenStreetMap/Cluodmade, there are still problems getting access to some types of information that would make mobile applications even more compelling, and yes I am talking about that old chestnut, access to public sector data sets.

The relevance of this to the community was demonstrated by the appreciation of the audience for the presentation given by Richard Allan of the Power of Information Task Force, who highlighted the well known issues with OS licensing practises.

For me these problems are demonstrated perfectly by the example of the new iPhone application National Rail.

This is a wonderful application, that is really useful providing real time train timetable information, and making use of location technology to automatically identify the closest station to you, and give you the timetable for trains to take you home.. very useful on a Friday night believe me..

The only problem is the cost, £4.99 which is expensive for an iPhone application where most commercial application cost less than a pound.

Why should the application cost anything? after-all surely the role of the Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC) is too make it easy for people to use the trains, not to sell software.

I have a similar application on my iPhone produced by British Airways that allows me to look up their timetable.. it is free.

ATOC may argue that there are development costs, etc in releasing an application like this, well the solution to that is straight forward, make he timetable information available free for the Geomob developers to download, sit back and watch what happens !

Written and submitted from home, using my home 802.11 network.

iphone

iPhone best-selling phone in the US

Post author By Ed Parsons
Post date November 11, 2008

The Guardian points out that the iPhone has replaced Motorola’s RAZR as the best selling mobile (cell) phone in the US. That’s impressive for an expensive smartphone, but to replace the RAZR !!

I can’t beleive people were still buying that pile of Sh*t !, a phone with perhaps the worlds most complex user interface since the Apollo command module.

Please feel free to drop a comment, with your worst phone experience.

Written and submitted from home, using my home 802.11 network.

Google Maps iphone Thoughts

As if my Magic… Traffic on your iPhone

Post author By Ed Parsons
Post date September 25, 2008
2 Comments on As if my Magic… Traffic on your iPhone

This morning we enabled Traffic Maps are part of Google Maps in the UK, and as a result of the magic of cloud based computing, all UK iPhone uses have new functionality to their maps application.

It’s worth thinking just how difficult it would have been to do a similar thing only a few years ago, now with a more open development architecture on mobile devices and the availability of geospatial infrastructures like Google maps.. it just works magically.

Written for the AGI Conference, Stratford-Upon-Avon using my three 3G Modem.

Apple iphone

Apple censors iPhone forum

Seems more of the ways of the mobile industry is rubbing off on the once shinny Apple brand.

This is a link to a disscussion on one of the Apple forums discussing availbailty of the white iPhone as an upgrade for O2 users in the UK. Only it has been removed…

Thanks to the wonders of the Google Index cache however we can view the original content, and is does not make happy reading for Apple or O2, however the fact that these critical comments have been removed shows poor judgement, and puts Apple in a very poor light.

The final comment by Neil Holmes before the discussion was removed is damming..

So much for Think Different !

Written and submitted from home, using my home 802.11 network.

Tags iphone censored

iphone

A clash of cultures..

In the Retail industry the growth of Apple Sores has really stood out, as a success story in the electronics sector, and anyone who has ever visited a PC World or Currys Digital (Its still Dixons to me) cannot but comment on the different experiences, knowledgable enthusiastic staff, slick processes, great design etc.

Well the wheels have come of the Apple Store shine for the past two weeks, following the launch of the iPhone 3G. What a shambles, from The Unofficial Apple Weblog, Chris Mac Morrison took this photo in the Regent Street Apple store of the queue of people waiting to buy their iPhones.

Rather than continue the ground breaking activate your iPhone at home process from the old iPhone, it would appear that Apple has given in to the demands of the mobile phone operators and are selling iPhones in the same way other phones are sold on the high street, with the required ID checks, credit checks, DNA samples and general humiliation.

And of course we all know how well the O2 online store worked !

Not the usual Apple store

The tragedy is that Apple had the opportunity to change an aspect of the mobile phone industry, one of many aspects people dislike, actually its difficult to find anyone who has much positive to say about their mobile phone operator.

I personally believe the whole industry would be in a better state if all phone were sold sim free, users would of course have to pay the full price for their devices but would then have the freedom to change operators more easily and in the process through competition drive up the standards of service provided by the operators.

Would you be happy to buy a car subsidised by a particular oil company, with the agreement that you would only buy petrol (Gas) from that companies service stations ?

A real missed opportunity, and Apple as a brand has been tarnished by association.

Written and submitted from home, using my home 802.11 network.

Tags iphone 3g, O2 failure

iphone

02 iPhone 3G 13,000 orders per second !!

Post author By Ed Parsons
Post date July 9, 2008
2 Comments on 02 iPhone 3G 13,000 orders per second !!

Got a nice email from Jennifer from O2 this morning, explaining why the iPhone 3G upgrade was such a disaster, the servers broke because…

“Demand for iPhone 3G is staggering. We invested heavily in our website capacity which was tested carefully in advance, but we were experiencing 13,000 orders per second being placed, far beyond our expectations.”

Wow !!! 13,000 orders per second, thats 780,000 per minute or 46 Million per hour. So Apple at that rate would reach it’s annual global sales target in the UK alone in 15 minutes.

This is either outrageous hype, or a mad cover story to hide poor planning and design of the O2 website, or .. well you had better drop everything and join everybody else you know or have ever met in the queue outside your nearest O2 store.

Written and submitted from home, using my home 802.11 network.

Tags iphone 3g, o2

iphone

O2 iPhone update : your fired !!

Post author By Ed Parsons
Post date July 7, 2008

You would have though given the amount of hype, O2 would have expected people to try and buy/upgrade their iPhones as soon as they could. So with just a few days to the July 11th launch date, they roll out a clearly under powered infrastructure to take orders.. Love to hear if you manage it today, I’m going to wait till next week..

Is anybody surprised this has happened, maybe some of siralans candidates took up positions with O2 ?

Written and submitted from the Google Office, London.

iphone

Why you need a iPhone 3G in the UK

Post author By Ed Parsons
Post date June 11, 2008
3 Comments on Why you need a iPhone 3G in the UK

iphone 3g Actually, I’m not that excited about the GPS, and the speed of UMTS is great but for me the most important part of the new package is the UMTS network itself and its coverage.

In the UK O2 never really invested in a EDGE network as a result, most iPhone users in the UK were limited to basic GPRS networking. The 3G network of O2 is much more extensive, so I expect to be able to get faster wireless access more often.

The combination of both Cloud and BT Openzone wireless access as part of the deal, may also mean that I spend more time on wifi anyway.

And yes of course I will be picking up a new iPhone on 11 July !

Written and submitted from the Google Office, London.