Lewis King.

Thoughts on Apple's announcements.

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 20:14:51 +0100

Okay, so the Stevenote is over, with some neat new announcements on Apple’s part. Firstly:

iOS 4.1 is coming out next week for iPhone and iPod Touch. Free download via iTunes. Bugs that are fixed: Proximity, Bluetooth, and iPhone 3G performance issues. It will feature High Dynamic Range photos, HD video upload over WiFi, Game Center.

- This is huge. iOS 4.1 fixes all the problems with people’s iPhone 4’s. Maybe to an extent but I’m happy with this update, and with my recent post (free iPhone 4 Bumper) all my problems are solved. HD video uploads over wifi is a great new option, I don’t want to transfer it to my MacBook to upload the full HD version to YouTube every time, this will shorten the process by at least 20 minutes. HDR photography is brilliant, admittedly it’s an art, a phone can’t do it as well as the manual process, but it certainly makes those photos of the happy family Apple likes to use in it’s adverts look a lot nicer! Finally, Game Center, I don’t game, but this looks like a big update, very happy about one universal system for all online gaming, rather than smaller ones per game or developer.

A Sneak Peek At iOS 4.2. Wireless printing will be coming to iPad in 4.2, AirPlay, multitasking. 4.2 will drop in November as a free update for iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch.

- FINALLY! Owning an iPad is FRUSTRATING right now. With my iPhone 4, I can multitask, I can add folders, and all the nice 4.0 updates, yet the iPad can’t. If I have to do something quickly, I always grab for my iPhone 4, the iPad has been gaining dust for a while (until today, used it to stream the keynote). November isn’t ideal, but I think I can wait.

Apple is releasing a new iPod Shuffle, iPod Nano, iPod touch.

- This was to be expected. The new iPod Shuffle now has it’s buttons back, as people were complaining. The iPod Nano is now touchscreen, doesn’t have a click-wheel, doesn’t have an accelerometer, and requires you to rotate the screen with two fingers to get it the right way up. It’s useless other than the fact it makes a neat watch now. I honestly don’t think this thing is that good, the colours are not too nice, the camera is gone, (a huge selling point of the previous generation) now, it’s just a bigger version of the iPod Shuffle, and I don’t like it. The iPod Touch is somehow even thinner, it’s got FaceTime and the Retina display. This is nice, but it was obvious it’d happen, the iPad is next with these two “revolutionary” features.

iTunes 10 has a new logo that drops the CD, The new iTunes is “simpler”, features a new hybrid, introducing Ping, a social network for music. iTunes 10 is available today.

- This is a nice update, but yet again, Apple seems to neglect that iTunes is a processor hog, it just runs and takes up a lot of space, it needs to be written from scratch, new features won’t do that. Ping is nice, and could be quite nice if people use it, my friends for instance, I don’t think would, they’re with Facebook and Spotify, they won’t use it much. The new logo is HORRIBLE, a shame to see this from Apple, the new hybrid view is okay, but I’m sticking to the cover view, (not cover-flow) as I find that view the fastest to use.

The Apple TV has never been a hit, The new Apple TV is smaller, a fourth the size of the previous version. HDMI output, built in WiFi, gone to the rental model. Ships: 4 weeks.

If Apple didn’t think that $99 was £99, then I think the update would be fantastic, Still, £99 is cheap, and I’ll be getting myself one of these, my parents already want one too. The whole downloading content idea is gone, all rentals. So, you can rent a film for a lot less than buying it, it plays instantly. You can stream movies from your iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch to the Apple TV over Wifi, this solves the problem for no apps, because if for instance, you’re using the BBC iPlayer app, you could press the little button next to the volume slider, and the video and audio would be pushed to the Apple TV using AirPlay (previously mentioned in the iPad update). This is a nice update, and you can pick one up in 4 weeks or preorder now.

All the usual Apple marketing rubbish is over at their site now, check it out to find out more.

Those are my thoughts, do you have any?

All done.

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 20:08:51 +0100

All done. Hey everyone, I thought I’d tell you what’s going on with the blogs. Firstly, I have two. I’m two different people, so why not? Now you might be thinking, Wait, hold up what?! Let me explain.

Online, I’m a Graphic Designer, and to my friends, I’m an ordinary 16 year old boy. This gets incredibly frustrating, as I can’t post half the stuff I want to to my friends, and half the stuff I want to to you, all my online friends, without either parties thinking of me differently.So here is what I’m doing:

I now have a blog at http://blog.lewisking.net for all my online, geeky, tech stuff. This is welcome for anyone to follow, even my real life friends, if you really want to.

I now also have a blog at http://lewisking.tumblr.com where I can be the typical Tumblrite and post all the random rubbish that is affecting me, all the crazy photos/videos/stories from my day to day life. This, once again is welcome to be followed by anyone.

It’d be great if you could follow the one that you feel you fall into, if you fall into both, brilliant, watch everything I do and follow both blogs. I hope that made sense.

England.

Sat, 21 Aug 2010 10:39:26 +0100

Being British is about driving a German car to an Irish pub for a Belgian beer. Then travelling home, grabbing an Indian curry or a Turkish kebab on the way, to sit on Swedish furniture and watch American shows on a Japanise TV.

Via thomasdavies: Taiwanese News is freaking funny.

Fri, 20 Aug 2010 11:27:05 +0100

Via thomasdavies: Taiwanese News is freaking funny.

Via georgiehoole: I have one of these in the attic somewhere,...

Fri, 20 Aug 2010 11:06:08 +0100

Via georgiehoole: I have one of these in the attic somewhere, along with a buzz lightyear. <3

iPhone VoiceControl.

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 09:24:39 +0100

Me: Make me a Sandwich.
iPhone: Calling Lisa King. (my mother)

Quick iPhone 4 review and video.

Tue, 17 Aug 2010 18:26:00 +0100

So I used my iPhone 4 for the first time today in the wild, well, on a day out if you must. It’s phenomenal and oh so much better than my 3G. Firstly it’s fast. Really fast. I was cutting and editing a video all day (embedded below) and it still ran like a beaut. I used it to check in with Gowalla, tweeted, checked facebook, phoned and texted people most of the day, Tracked the train times and looked at maps for locations. At the end of the day (6.22PM at the time of writing.) - I’ve still got 52% battery from constant use. My 3G would be dead now. The camera is amazing, iMovie is super powerful, after all, it’s a PHONE! The screen is just mind-blowing, it looks like a sticker on the screen the whole time. Also, the antenna issues are nowhere near as bad as the media want you to believe. Enjoy the video!

Have an iPhone 4? Comment on what you think about the phone below please?

See you all in a month.

Sat, 10 Jul 2010 21:17:19 +0100

I’m off to Ghana for a month. Expect hours of videos and thousands of photos when I return on the 9th of August. Wahey!

See you all then! Oh, and I’ll be blogging from time to time from here: http://bit.ly/ccDybw

"Alright kid, this is where it gets complicated."

Sun, 27 Jun 2010 14:46:59 +0100

“Alright kid, this is where it gets complicated.”

Doctor Who.

Mon, 21 Jun 2010 11:14:15 +0100

Doctor Who reminds me why it is brilliant to be british. This is TV at its best. Steven Moffat has crafted a thing of beauty this series, and it’s all about to end next week at 6.05PM.

Now I’m usually very into the program, but never as much as this, this truly has me thinking at every single twist, every single prolonged shot and every weird expression. The series is full of unanswered questions,

A duck pond with no ducks
The doctor returning for Amy in the forest, with his jacket on, when it’s been taken by an angel. Not a continuity issue.
Why is Amy’s house so big?
Who went past the camera in The Eleventh Hour? It wasn’t Prisoner Zero.
What was with the prolonged look into the TARDIS consol at the end of “Amy’s Choice” and seeing The Dream Lord again?
The creepy voice saying “Silence will fall” clearly isn’t the alliance.
Why doesn’t the alliance know who River Song is?

Hopefully, we’ll have all the answers in next weeks 55 minute episode, but for now we can only speculate, oh and that list? Only a little sample of the questions running through my head right now. This series has been the strongest yet, yes, they all end with “the end of the universe” but Moffat actually puts things in the episodes before to link it to the story arc, rather than RTD just putting things in the end to use up budget. I always felt disappointed with the RTD era, and Moffat has made up for it big time.

We’ll find out all the answers and more next week, and by the look of those leaked photos, we’re in for a very, very good hour. Thoughts?

Tumblr. The movie.

Sun, 20 Jun 2010 14:38:15 +0100

Tumblr. The movie.

A week with the iPad.

Wed, 09 Jun 2010 22:17:36 +0100

I’ve had my iPad a week, it’s changed a lot of things.

1. I am dreading opening Mail on my MacBook, for the past week, email has all been done from iPad. I’ve got through a hell of a lot more too!

2. My MacBook now feels a lot heavier.

3. Going from the iPhone to the iPad is a little weird at first. I’m used to rotating my iPhone to portrait when I get to the springboard, but on the iPad, that doesn’t need to happen. It rotates to every orientation. So a few seconds is spent rotating iPad to something usable.

4. The keyboard is good. It corrects a lot of mistakes, but takes a while to get used to. It’s certainly faster than the iPhone. Which is a good thing.

5. Get a case. I didn’t for a few days, and I got a few scares with dropping the thing. Nothing happened though. I went for the griffin élan portfolio. It’s brilliant and only £20 at CPW.

6. WeRule eats your time. Before, I spent a little bit of time on WeRule on my iPhone. On the iPad however, it is the time eater that farmville used to be x 3.

7. It is SUPER fast. Going from an iPhone 3G to this is day and night. The A4 chip inside screams. The whole thing is so snappy and it makes the whole experience so much better than waiting for mail to load for 15 seconds on the 3G. God mine is slow.

8. The screen gets horrible. Now, I have bad hands for this, but the iPad screen gets very dirty within a day. I’d take a cloth with you. Luckily my iPad case has a little pocket I can fit one in.

The iPad is wonderful, it is easy to use, fast and so much better than I first thought it would be. For me, the one thing I love the most is opening Pulse in the morning and reading a personalised news feed on it, rather than getting my laptop open or trying to get through the articles on my iPhone. Books are also fabulous and for a quick google search or youtube video nothing else compares.

(Via jdryden) - This is brilliant.

Wed, 19 May 2010 11:40:59 +0100

(Via jdryden) - This is brilliant.

elliottheis: Sometimes we forget just how short and precious...

Tue, 04 May 2010 22:55:07 +0100

elliottheis:

Sometimes we forget just how short and precious our time on this planet really is. It’s for this reason that John Lewis’s new television ad seems to have struck an uncharacteristic chord.

You won’t find many people admitting to crying over the usual flood of formulaic adverts on our screens - yet this ‘moving’ ad has got Britain talking - and sobbing into their breakfast bowls.

At 91 seconds long, and costing £6million, the ad has been watched an incredible 100,000 times in the single week that it has been available on YouTube.

tmdvs: Simple RSS for all, only on iPhone… This looks bloody...

Tue, 30 Mar 2010 16:00:39 +0100

[Flash 10 is required to watch video.]

tmdvs:

Simple RSS for all, only on iPhone…

This looks bloody good! Can’t wait to try it out myself.

My desktop. What does yours look like?

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 10:59:46 +0000

My desktop. What does yours look like?

PairUp London.

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 19:19:42 +0000

PairUp London just released tickets for their two day conference in the center of London on the 8th and 9th of April. The brilliant thing is, this will be on during spring break, which means I don’t have to fake being ill, or write a ass-licking letter to the school. Kick-ass.

If you’re thinking of coming, shoot me an @reply, it’d be great to meet more of you in person, and we can go partying till 2AM with the cool kids. Hope to see you all there! Tickets are on sale for the next hour ending at 8PM so be quick!

http://pairupconf.com

“I’m a Satellite Heart, Lost In The Dark. I’m...

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 15:10:40 +0000

“I’m a Satellite Heart, Lost In The Dark. I’m spun out so far, You stop I start, But I’ll Be true to you.”

The problem with facebook apps.

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 17:48:32 +0000

Now I’m not usually against facebook applications, (many of you may know about my recent Farmville addiction), but when they mimic Facebook’s functionality WORD FOR WORD, there is something very wrong. I signed into facebook just moments before writing this, and here is what I saw.

To any normal human being, that would look like someone has commented on a photo you have uploaded, right? Wrong. This is actually an application called “Photo Comments”.

They’ve mimicked facebooks notification word for word, icon for icon, making the normal person, (like me) click it and go to their app without hesitation. I highly doubt I’m the first to do so either. The app resides here, and requires you to allow some access so it can (and I’m guessing here,) spam your friends with the notifications you see above and I don’t really want to do that surprisingly, so I can’t give you the details. I think this is just so wrong. Any comments?

Apple Store madness.

Tue, 05 Jan 2010 13:53:00 +0000

Apple stores don’t have “no smoking” signs. Legally they need them but they “ruin the design of the store”, so for every apple store in the UK they pay £50 a day to keep their windows sign free. Crazy shit.

EDIT: I forgot to include the source, it’s a friend who works in the Apple Store in Norwich, The evidence is the fact that they aren’t actually in the windows.