The basic idea here is that the iPhone itself will still be about the same as it is today, but with 3 docking ports where 2 are on the side. What are these two ports for? Connecting an iPod touch that also has two connectors on the side by means of a small cheap accessory that acts as a hinge and a data transfer medium. An ipod touch is now $199, which frankly doesn’t make it that big an investment considering what you could do with such a setup, and the extra storage space it would give you.

Extra hardware

To connect the devices you could use WiFi Ad-Hoc (device-to-device WiFi) but you need a way to clip them together anyways, so might as well use dock connectors or something of the sort. I’m sure that a way of making this work isn’t a big problem for any hardware engineer.

Extended screens

One of the most obvious uses for this would be extended screen. Double the main menu icons, double the screen space for web browsing etc. It’s a simple thing to do that could really improve usability with the extra resolution.

Multitasking

Multitasking is a touchy (pardon the pun) subject on the iphone/touch. Not only would this setup give twice the RAM, CPU, GPU etc if they could work together – it would also double the screen real-estate as to letting you have two open apps at once. Imagine Spotify open while reading a book like the example below!

Keyboard

Two screens gives you a LOT of space for the keyboard- you can have it on the bottom screen while doing stuff on the top screen, or you could even split it between the two screens in portrait mode and get a 640 pixel wide keyboard- up from the 480 pixel wide landscape keyboard we have now.

Gaming

The iPhone is a nice gaming platform, but the lack of controls is an issue- you can put controls on the screen, but that means you block a lot of it as well! When you have two screens, that’s no issue – show the game on the top screen, controls on the bottom.

Seperating the devices – WiFi Ad-Hoc

Not to be overlooked is what you can do with two such devices even if they’re not physically connected. Imagine if the phone rings- you answer it on the iPhone part, while the ipod touch is taken off and show information about the caller (like the caller screen does today, but you’d have it right there without having to take the phone off your ear), take notes, look up stuff etc.

Furthermore, WiFi Ad Hoc would allow you to connect one device to a TV or a stereo system and use the other device to control it. This would not only give you perfect quality on everything you play back (vs f.ex Bluetooth audio streaming) but it would also solve the problem of interference from the iPhone GSM services if the touch was the device being docked.

There are plenty of uses for this – remote control for the camera, stereo audio recording, dual-angle video recording (once the touch gets a camera) etc etc. The possibilities are endless.

Probability of happening

This idea isn’t farfetched. It’s fully possibly with the hardware already in the devices out today if you used WiFi instead of the physical connectors. All that is needed is software – software that frankly isn’t all that complicated. Still, this is Apple. Despite the innovation they often do, they aren’t really used to thinking this much outside the box. Still, a person can dream.

There are no cables in this one so it’s technically a stand not a dock, but I just wanted a place to quickly put my iPhone down (with the case on) so I dropped the cables. Its a wooden disc cut off a tree we took down at work this summer, sanded a bit and adapted with a router to fit a dock adapter inside. The dock adapter came with the CapsuleRebel case and so I had a easy way of making the iPhone fit perfectly in the stand with the case on.

Spotify is a legal system where you pay in some way – either directly for an ad free/ + mobile experience or by having ads as pictures and audio in the program – to get to browse a database of millions of songs and listen to them as you like. The difference compared to what you’re sued to is that you don’t own any of the music, you simply stream it directly from the Internet as you please. The quality is good, using some decent bitrate Ogg Vorbis formats for streaming, and the selection is huge.

The iPhone client now available will let you use your premium account (99NOK/$15 per month) to get the Spotify experience on your iPhone. The app is also available for Android and will be released for other mobile OSes like the S60 in the future. Spotify mobile does however not work with the free, ad-supported version of the service.

When you first install Spotify it will ask you to login and then sync the playlists you have on your PC client. You can then use these, search for more music, make playlists etc as you please. The music will stream directly from the Internet just as it does on the PC version.

There is however a very important extra on the mobile client: offline mode. Basically this allows you to (when connected to WiFi) download the songs and play them when you don’t have a (sufficient) network connection to stream directly. This makes the app a lot more powerful and extends it’s usefulness on the go to people with iPod touches or simply people who don’t have unlimited data plans on their cellphones (or don’t have 3G/Edge coverage).

The app works well; it’s quick, easy to use and generally works as advertised. There are however some downsides. First off, all you can really do is search for music – it won’t recommend anything and there isn’t a “radio” (random streaming tracks) like on the PC client. This means you either have to know exactly what you want, or make playlists on the desktop where you have at least a few more options (albeit not many).

There are also other minor annoyances like the app having crashed a few times and small interface annoyances like not being able to edit playlists from the “add to playlist” menu. The latter annoyance basically means if you want to create a new playlist to add an album/song/etc to, you have to go back to the playlist menu and do it from there as you can’t do it when you select to add to playlist. As a comparison, it would be like not being able to create folders from the “save as…” popup box on a PC forcing you to go to the destination folder manually and do it from there.

The iPhone also won’t let third party apps run in the background, so if you’re using Spotify you have to have Spotify open at all times unolike the built in music player which will play in the background. This is an annoyance from Apple’s side and the most annoying thing about this app altogether- I do other thigns while listening all the time; check mail, google reader etc etc. I can’t have my media in an app that clsoes every time I go to do that.

All in all, Spotify is great value if you listen to music a lot (which I really don’t do), as long as you can live without multitasking and tolerate a few crashes here and there. 99NOK/$15 a month isn’t that much for unlimited access to millions of songs, and it’s definitely the cheaper route to go if you want a lot of music and want to be legal.

When I first thought about this my ideas were in the realm of a stick-on dock, a “shelf” on the side to hold it and other less practical solutions to keep the phone nearby without falling down places. Finally I got an idea that frankly should have been the first idea I had, but sometimes the easiest solutions come to you last.

Basically I just made a hook by bending some acrylic glass under heat, glued it to an iPhone data cable and that’s it. Now I can just hang the phone on the back of the screen and it will stay in place and most likely also get a better connection since it’s higher up towards the windows. I also shorted the cable a bit by tucking it inside some big pieces of heatshrink so it’s not so long.

It’s a simple project but it works great. The connector is more than strong enough to hold the phone up when you’re sitting still, but I wouldn’t run around with this hanging on as the phone would probably fall off.

The situation today

The N900 is basically the child of a N97 and an evolved version of the Linux distro Maemo, used on Nokias old Internet tablet such as the N800 I once had. It has a 3.5″ 800×480 touch screen, 5 mega pixel camera, slide down keyboard and some other neat tricks like 1GB of RAM and a 600MHz Arm CPU.

Nokias problem has always been software. Symbian S60, the OS of choice for every single Nokia smartphone in the last 10 years, is old. Very old, very outdated. It’s basically DOS compared to Windows 7 when you see it against the iPhone, Android, or any more recent OS. Windows Mobile is in the same boat, with it’s version 6.5 still being outdated compared to the competition. The reason for this is that cell phones have changed a lot in the last couple of years – better processors, bigger screens, and touchscreens all around. Both Symbian and Windows Mobile are old, and the core is built around cell phones with buttons. Touch screen controls are fundamentally different, and trying to patch the OS to fit such screens will always end in failure – as both the newer versions of Windows Mobile and S60 v5 has shown when you compare it to the newer, built-from-scratch OSes.

The contenders in the market today are starting to get plentiful: discounting the outdated S60 and Windows Mobile, you have the BlackBerry OS that the BlackBerries use, Palm’s WebOS found on the Palm Pre, Android found on several phones such as the recently released HTC Hero, iPhone OS (aka Mobile OS-X) found on the iPhone and today’s new addition Maemo which will most likely be Nokias main smartphone platform (at least for such devices, S60 might still be around for the E series).

Strengths and weaknesses

Each of these OSes have their strengths and weaknesses. Some are in the software itself, others in the infra structure of the respective companies.

Starting with the iPhone, a lot of people complain about it being locked down with Apple’s approval process for apps and lack of features such as multitasking. At the same time, the iPhone is the iPhone – it has the full backing of everyone who knows the importance of Apple branding. This means that for both accessories and software (two aspects which is somewhat intertwined after the 3.0 update) it has a lot more support in the Apple infrastructure than any other platform. Apple basically reinvented cell phone applications with the App store for the iPhone, and everyone else is trying to play catchup. The thing is that with Apple now having been in the game for several years, they are way ahead of the other companies when it comes to number of apps and developers making apps. For a new developer, the iPhone may provide less-than-ideal conditions for selling the apps with the approval process and all that, but at the same time there are more devices available and so more people to sell to, which makes the iPhone a more appealing platform. The other contenders, relatively new on the market, have few people using their OS at the moment which provides less of an incentive for developers to focus on them. Of course that will change over time, and there’s something to be said for new markets after all, but Apple was first and will profit from that for a long time.

Both Android and Maemo are open source and Maemo in particular might have a whole army of Maemo developers to back them up, but that might not necessarily be a good thing. I’ve had a Maemo device and had no trouble using it, however it wasn’t exactly the most user friendly device out there. The core Maemo that the N900 runs will be more polished and user friendly, however I can’t help to think there will be a split between power users (read: Linux geeks) and mainstream consumers (read: wannabe-geeks) which will make the platform a rather peculiar mix of people where Nokia’s customer support will be run down by mainstream consumers who have tried something they saw on a Maemo forum and failed miserably.

The Palm Pre has completely other problems altogether. The SDK (software development kit, “user manual” to make apps) is based off web languages like HTML and javascript which means it’s easy to develop for but severely limited in what it can actually do, especially with regards to gaming. Think of it (extremely simplified) like trying to create 3D animated movies like Toy Story/Ice Age/Shrek etc with colored pencils. It can’t be done. There have been rumours or at least speculations that Palm will open the platform to full hardware access in the future (like on other phones) but only time will tell. Without it however, they will most likely have a very hard time competing as gaming is quickly becoming a major aspect of the iPhone and other platforms have started to include better graphics processors to get in on the fun.

BlackBerry is sort of the lone wanderer in all of this. It’s not antiquated like Windows Mobile and S60 simply because it’s still probably the best platform out there for messaging and business use. Yet, it’s nowhere near getting the media fuzz that the new devices get, probably because it’s less of a platform for young people and more for “real” adults. Most the smartphone OSes these days support things like Microsoft Exchange and other PIM (Personal Information Mangement) features such as calendars and whatnot so BlackBerry isn’t king of it’s own thing anymore (or it might be king, but there are princes all around).

The future

So how will the war end? I really have no idea. If I were to guess, I think the iPhone will continue to be the mainstream of the mainstream devices, Maemo and Nokia will be the choice for the hardware geeks and the linux geeks, Android will be the non-iPhone iPhone and the Palm Pre will be the better-than-iPhone iPhone. Blackberyy will most likely continue to wander around on it’s own, doing it’s own thing. When Windows Mobile 7 comes out that will also get a place, however I doubt it will be that big.

No matter what the future will be, it sure will be interesting. Competition is good, and from a personal point of view I hope the competition will force Apple to react more quickly to competition and open up the iPhone a bit more. No matter what flaws it might have, it’s still my cell phone of choice and I doubt that will change for a while.

The iPhone doesn’t allow third party apps to run in the background due to RAM issues and worries on how it will affect stability, but Apple has an alternative – push messages. Basically this allows the phone to receive over the air messages pushed directly to the screen in form of a pop up message. This can be used for email notifications, IM chat, and in NotifyMe’s case – todo items.

The app is simple: you create an account, and when you add reminders those are synced to your account online. Then, when you quit the app, the reminders will pop up on the screen at the right time via the use of push notifications. Simple, but it works.

You can create categories to sort your todos as well as view upcoming and past reminders. You can only set the notification time in 5 min intervals, meaning you can have it notify you at 8:00 or 8:05 but not 8:03. Not really an issue for most cases, at least it hasn’t been for me.

The system works well, however the push service is sometimes a bit late in showing up – an issue that’s on Apple’s side of things as it’s a known issue with all push applications. Still, I haven’t had any real issues wiith this so far.

Bottom line it’s not a complicated app, but the simplicity-to-usefulness ratio is what makes it such a great tool. Definitely recommend. As with all push apps it’s a tad expensive at $3.99, but if you’re like me and forget stuff often it’s very much worth it in my opinion.

The Nike+ sensor was initially just a weird gadget I bought since it was cheap and I had the touch 2G (so only needed the sensor) but quickly turned into a very nice accessory that went into daily using walking my dog, Kismo. It’s fun seeing how far you’ve gone and seeing the total distance walked slowly growing each day. The milestones are particularly fun to hit, and while every 100km is a nice milestone 500km is a really big one.

The total time spent is 125 hours, over the about 130 days since we started doing this. That’s about an hour each day, which again is about 4km. Some days have been longer, with the longest walks being about 10km, with some days being shorter. The crappy weather this summer and being tired from work has meant shorter trips and we’ve also temporarily lost our old 6.5km walk to idiots (aka tourists), but we’ve managed to find a new route that includes a bit of forest, mostly deserted roads, and more flexibility in length (from 3.7 km and up as far as we want to go).

The reasons for these walks are multiple. Staying somewhat fit is of course nice, and of course a dog needs excercise as well, but I find that getting away from the chair for an hour to listen to a podcast or audio book and enjoy the otuside for a while is the main reason I bother. For the last two months though I have been working my summer job at the Norwegian Road Museum which mostly involves being outside for 6 hours a day, 6 days a week with cycling to and from work, but try explaining “my feet are tired” to a way-too-cute 1.5 year old German Shepherd/Alaskam Malamut mix who’s been more or less trained to expect a walk every day. Besides I have plenty of time to sit on my ass after our walk, and at least then I won’t be bothered with a increasingly sad looking dog face staring at me for the rest of the evening.

Hopefully we’ll hit a few more milestones before winter really sets in and blocks most our routes, though there will be a long time until there’s another one like this. I really recommend the Nike+ sensor to anyone who has a 2G touch or iPhone 3GS as it’s a great little fun device even if you like walking instead of running.

“Back then” I did what any sane economics student would do and made a quite comprehensive overview of the expected value I’d get from the 3GS. Such a detailed plan will get you half way but you still don’t really know how you’ll use something before you buy it, and unlike some retards morons dumbasses people I work with I don’t take lightly to expensive purchases.

All I can say so far is that it’s totally worth it. Tethering saved my ass last week when my modem died and the morons at Ventelo (my provider) managed to fuck up something as simple as sending a new modem 3 times. I’ve alse left my camera at home more often since the 3.2 mega pixel camera of the 3GS was much better than I expected, and the same can be said for video mode.

The best “feature” of the phone is to not have to carry two devices (iPod touch + cell phone). At first I got seriously confused every time I left the house as I felt like I’d forgotten something, but I got used to it and it’s great. Another great feature is the remote control headphones that came with the phone and which I made more usable. Unfortunately the heavy beating the headphones got at work lead to a fatal encounter with some rain yesterday and I’m currently back to normal headphones while I wait for white CX300 from mymemory and remote control headphones from focalprice.

Push notification on MSN and Gtalk messages with the app IM+ has been great as well as having access to Twitter anywhere. Games etc is somethign I already had on the iPod touch so I won’t go into details on those, but the GPS is an iPhone only feature – one I haven’t used much since I tend to know where I’m going.

I find myself moving or duplicating more and more PC features on the phone since it’s always with me and has an Internet connection anywhere. I was unsure if unlimited (well 5GB cap before they reduce speed so “unlimited”) data was necessary, but frankly I’m glad I chose it both because I needed it for tethering but also because I can use data whenever I want without even thinking about using up my quota. You don’t know how nice it is to have a capable Internet enabled phone with unlimited data and a 3G connection until you’ve tried it.

Lastlt, the “speed” part of the 3GS which is one of the big upgrades from the 3G. I haven’t had a 3G, but I’ve had the touch 1G which has the same hardware and the touch 2G which has a faster CPU, and this thing is so much faster than any of those it’s rather tragic to see anyone with a previous generation device now because it’s like they’re moving in slow motion. The CPU speed increase helps a lot with getting things done, like opening apps and documents, and the 128MB extra RAM improves stability dramatically.

So, as you might have gathered, it was definitely worth the price to get the device. Hopefully the protection I bought for it will help get it through the remaining days at work where I only have a normal GPRS connection so I can start using it at school where I have a nice connection and don’t have to hide the phone in my pocket to save it from rain, falls, dirt, and goats (a goat ate the cord of my headphones earlier this summer, when I had the touch).

I’m not a stranger to SwitchEasy products having reviewed the ThumbTack microphone on here before, but when it comes to cases I tend to be a bit paranoid as even well known companies can produce shitty cases. After reading up on the CapsuleRebel however I was sold.

The CapsuleRebel works differently from other cases. it’s part hard-case, part plastic/silicon-case. There’s an inner part consisting of a soft plasticy material (not silicon yet not plastic) and a hard plastic spine that goes on top, fitting into the inner case. The full package aims to provide a stylish case that also protects well as it reinforces the inner half-soft case with hard plastic where it matters, like the edges.

The build quality of the case is extremely nice and the fit is perfect – it feels like a natural part of the phone. It was easy to put on yet stays on very nicely and it simply looks awesome. One downside is that the hard plastic spine gets easily scratched, something the RebelSerpent version of the case aims to fix. You can also buy additional spines separately and mix and match colors. The case itself is also sold in many different colors and color mixes.

The number of included “accessories” to the case is also a pleasant surprise. There are two full front screen protectors, a dock connector protector, a video stand, screen cloth, squeegee for the screen protectors and a dock adapter so you can use the case with a dock. The dock connector protector and especially the dock adapter are very nice accessories to get with a case and almost a reason in itself to get this case. I have a Logitech Pure-Fi Anytime alarm clock dock and it’s not been used for anything but the alarm clock part (without a docked device) for half a year due to me using a case with my devices. It’s a small plastic part that probably don’t cost them much but makes all the difference in the world for someone who likes cases but has a dock.

Bottom line I’m extremely satisfied with the CapsuleRebel and it’s well worth the $25+$5 shipping I paid for it on eBay. It gives off a feel of being really high quality and doesn’t feel flimsy like pretty much all cases I’ve had does. Absolutely recommended!