Posted by: Dave Burrows | July 27, 2010

Want a truly portable iPad stand? Check out Qubits stand for the Apple iPad

I have been looking for a perfect lightweight and small desktop stand for my iPad and stumbled across this really amazing stand for the iPad. It looks like an old painting style easel, it folds flat so you can put it into any gadget bag with ease, but extends out to varying lock positions so depending on how you want your iPad standing on the desk, whether you want it almost vertical vs flag on it’s back, this stand really performs well.

The stand is also made of metal and is quite heavy for its actual size, but I suspect the reason for this is to add weight so the iPad doesn’t topple over at any angle.

Up until now I’ve been using a Laptop desktop stand which has been pretty bulky but now I can just place this into my rucksack whenever I travel and be able to stand up the iPad without any worries of having it fall over or having to lay it on the desk each time and risk scratching the back.

The stand is made by Qubits and is available via Amazon for £18.99

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Posted in Apple, Hardware, iPad

Posted by: Dave Burrows | July 26, 2010

LG can’t keep up with demand for iPad screens says LG CEO


LG CEO Kwon Young-Soo has admitted to reporters that it can’t stay ahead of the game in producing enough iPad 9.7″ IPS screens. It’s having great difficulty in keeping up with production runs and has suggested to Apple that it may want to think about delaying more international rollouts due to tight component supplies and strong international demand. Even if LG were to increase production capacity there would he shortages for 2011.

This doesn’t bode well, especially seeing LG are also the screen supplier for the new iPhone 4. Let’s hope that Apple can still produce enough iPads even if it has to go to other suppliers for screens.

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Posted in Apple, Hardware, News, iPad

Posted by: Dave Burrows | July 25, 2010

Ferrari fined $100,000 for breaching F1 rules!


The FIA Stewards investigation into the changing of the race results in the Hockenheim F1 Grand Prix have been concluded and the FIA Stewards have fined Ferrari $100,000 US Dollars for fixing the race results.

I’m sure both Filipe Massa and Fernando Alonso will stick to their stories as well as Ferrari, but it was a pretty clear cut case even from watching the camera footage, listening to the team radio broadcast and how Massa moved over on the circuit.

Hopefully this will draw an end to todays race fixing results and the Formula 1 championship can still continue.

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Posted in Formula 1, News

Posted by: Dave Burrows | July 25, 2010

Ferrari summoned before the FIA Stewards for race fixing at the Hockenheim Grand Prix


Ferrari have been summoned after the results of the Hockenheim grand prix today.

Fernando Alonso was gaining in 2nd position towards Felipe Massa. Felipe’s engineer Rob Smedley at Ferrari made a radio broadcast to Felipe saying “Fernando is faster than you, can you confirm you understand?” shortly afterwards Felipe was seen moving out of the way to let Alonso past.

Although both drivers deny team orders took place, both seem to be unhappy and Felipe’s body language certainly seems to suggest that orders did come into play.

Rule 39.1 of the Formula One rules stipulates “Team orders which interfere with a race result are prohibited”

With Jean Todt former Ferrari Principle and now the new FIA president, some media sites and broadcasts are suggesting that might have some bearing on the outcome. Time will tell…

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Posted in Formula 1, News

Posted by: Dave Burrows | July 24, 2010

Apple maybe exploring a new redesign of the iPhone 4 antenna

Due to the constant media attention wrongly directed towards Apple for the newly redesigned iPhone 4 external antenna, Apple maybe trying to explore a number of different alternatives to the antenna design. Here’s a few new designs you could see coming your way if the media continue hounding Apple…

Personally I prefer the internal antenna option, what do you prefer?

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Posted in Apple, News, Ramblings, Technology, iPhone

Posted by: Dave Burrows | July 24, 2010

Getting 9 Mbps HSDPA speeds for my iPad whilst mobile

A lot of people ask me why I didn’t purchase the 3G iPad. There were several reasons why I decided to go for the WiFi version of the iPad.

1) I wanted to get the iPad from the US before it was released in the UK and at that time the iPad WiFi version was the only one available at that time.

2) I typically find 3G too slow, and if I could find a HSDPA router and create a WiFi hotspot just for myself from that router then I could achieve much higher speeds on the iPad when surfing the internet, downloading photos, music, blogging and much more.

If you take a look at the speed test image below, you’ll see I managed to get 3.21 Mbps on 3G. This is typically what the iPad WiFi +3G will achieve as standard.

Now if I hook up my HSDPA router to the iPad, I am able to now get a whopping 9.06 Mbps. Which is actually faster than my 8 Mbps ADSL line at home.

I use the HTC HD2 as a HSDPA / 3G router with an application called WiFi Router for WinMobile 6.5. It means I have to carry two phones, my main iPhone 3GS along with the HD2 but it gets me the speeds I want. Most of my apps are on my iPhone and not the HD2 so I still can’t replace my iPhone with the HD2 yet.

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Posted in HTC, Windows Mobile, iPad

Posted by: Dave Burrows | July 24, 2010

Blogging from the beach on the iPad


I was up bright and early this morning, so after getting rid of some of those weekly chores like shopping for food I decided to grab my iPhone, iPad and HSDPA router and head out to the beach.

It’s bright and sunny down here in the south coast of the UK and hitting into the high 20′s today but with a nice sea breeze as I walk along the beach, it keeps the air nice and cool without making it too hot.

So why am I writing is post from the beach and not enjoying the outdoors I hear you say? Well I am! I’ve been walking along the beach for an hour and decided to stop and sit for a while. I decided I would sit and take a break from walking and whipped out my HSDPA router (HTC HD2) from my new STM iPad bag, followed closely by my iPad. It just goes to show how mobile you can be with the iPad and you don’t have to be stuck in doors on a nice hot sunny day to write a blog post. Why HSDPA router? Well simply put I only have the WiFi version of the iPad and not iPad WiFi+3G. Using another mobile phone as a wireless router for the iPad also means I can get faster speeds with HSDPA over what a regular 3G iPad would get. Unfortunately you can’t tether in the UK with the iPhone unless you want to jailbreak, so the HD2 is the next best thing for me :)

The photo above was taken with the iPhone 3GS (iOS4)

Here I am sitting on the beach, listening to the high tide of the waves lapping against the sand in a nice calm tranquility. It’s these times I really like my technology and being able to take it almost anywhere with me and still use it without any great hardship.

time to get some book reading in before walking further along the beach, hope you all manage to get in some relaxing time in the sun too this weekend!

PS. Using Blogpress on the iPad to post todays posts.

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Posted in Something for the Weekend, iPad

Posted by: Dave Burrows | July 23, 2010

BBC launch iPad news reader app


The BBC today decided it would try to beat Sky News to the punch (and did) by releasing their new iPad News App.

The BBC app is beautifully designed for the iPad and works in both Portrait and Landscape mode with news index categories that can be flicked left or right to rotate through the news in that section.

You also have the ability to watch BBC News 24 live through the app.

The BBC app is an online news easer, not offline like a lot of RSS news readers, so you do need a high speed Internet connection, either 3G or WiFi (for video playback).

The BBC app is great but it does have a few teething problems that hopefully will be fixed in a future update.

Problems found

1) On initial launch I received a green screen where the news category index should appear. Power cycling the iPad will resolve this. It only happens some times in Portrait mode.

2) intermittently if I try to play the BBC News Live Feed I am greeted by a message saying streaming is not possible outside of the UK, yet I’m currently in the UK on a WiFi network. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. This might be an over capacity problem possibly.

Other than that, the news app is a great addition and well designed for the iPad! Brits just now have to wait for Sky to create an iPad app to have the news complete.

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Posted in Applications, News, iPad

Posted by: Dave Burrows | July 23, 2010

Samsung Galaxy S says “hello” to Apple!


You might mistake this advert for a Hello Moto advert, but if you look more closely it is for the new Samsung Galaxy S smartphone which runs on the Android platform.

Seeing that Apple had recently held the press conference regarding what Steve Jobs dubbed “AntennaGate”, Samsung decided to try and capitalize on this by cheekily changing the word hello into cellular signal bars.

For anyone that had their head buried in the sand for the last few weeks, they might not notice the irony of the advert.

For everyone that have seen the tech news and the Apple iPhone 4 antenna problems will instantly recognize this as Samsung taking shot at Apple.

Wise or not? Time I’ll tell…

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Posted in Android, Apple, iPhone

Posted by: Dave Burrows | July 23, 2010

Darth Vader calls Apple iPhone 4 Support

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Posted in Apple, Videos, iPhone

Posted by: Dave Burrows | July 20, 2010

Poor HTC Desire third party Charger Dock quality (Video)

I decided to purchase a charger dock for the HTC Desire, it showed a second battery in the dock and didn’t say it was excluding the second battery. That was the first mistake when unboxing it. The second battery is additional. Okay, maybe I shouldn’t have expected too much form a charger dock advertising the second battery clearly in the picture, but I’ll clearly hold up my hands and strike that down to being my fault.

The second problem was that half of the sticky pads on the base are missing, that should have been something noticed when they packed it into the box.

The third problem was the quality on how badly the device sits in the cradle. Absolutely Shocking.

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Posted in Android, Ramblings, Technology, Videos

Posted by: Dave Burrows | July 20, 2010

What do the iPhone 4.0.1 Antenna bars now look like?

A lot of people have asked the question as to what the iPhone 4.0.1 antenna bars now look like in the new change of the height of the bars. If you look to the right you’ll see iPhone 4.0.1 on the top vs iPhone 4.0/3.x below it followed by what Android shows.

You can see that the first two bars have been increased in size so it’s much more easier to read them. Along with that Apple also changed how many bars they show in the algorithm so with 4.0.1 applied most people will in hard to reach places now see less bars, e.g. 1 bar instead of maybe 3 to 4. Effectively iOS3 and iOS4 wasn’t telling the entire truth about how many true signal bars you have. The truth is dependent on the algorithm used to calculate the bars. That’s why sometimes you would see 3 or 4 bars but you couldn’t make a call or a call would be dropped.

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Posted in Apple, iPhone

Posted by: Dave Burrows | July 18, 2010

HTC now respond to Apples Antennagate allegations regarding HTC Droid Eris

The conference on Friday that Apple held may have upset rival manufacturers (putting it mildly). Nokia, RIM responded earlier and now HTC have added their weight to Apples statement effectively trying to blame Apple for their own antenna problems.

HTC’s Droid Eris was arguably the most affected by the death grip, where apple showed the signal bars dropping to zero when held in a particular way. HTC shared it’s percentage of antenna complaints to help clear the air. Where as Apple claimed 0.55 percent of customers called AppleCare with reception related problems, HTC’s Eric Lin told Pocket-lint the Droid Eris technical support rate was 0.016 percent. That’s almost thirty four times lower, although HTC probably didn’t sell similar volumes within a three week period like Apple have.

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Posted in Apple, HTC, News, Nokia

Posted by: Dave Burrows | July 18, 2010

Audible app hits the iTunes Store for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad

I’ve been an Audible subscribe as far back as I can remember. I think I originally joined around 2000 or 2001 and used to listen to audio books on my Windows CE device at the time. Audible has been on the iPhone and iPod Touch platform for some time through the Apple iTunes Store but now Audible have released their own app along with changes that allowed them to do so in iOS 4.0.

The first good thing about the app is it’s free. Unfortunately though you’re not able to browse through Audible’s selection of audio books or purchase books directly. This still has to be done from the website. Audible claims to have over 75,000 titles available.

You do have to be connected to a WiFi router to download files larger than 20mb as there’s a cap on large downloads. Although this limit isn’t a surprise to most as most applications have a similar limitation imposed by Apple.

Audio book playback is where the new app really does come in great. The app provides a much better experience than listening to audio books through the iPod player and with the newly released iOS 4 multitasking, this gives you the ability to mutlitask and listen to an audio book whilst running another application at the same time (providing that both apps are iOS4 friendly of course).

The app has some great features like a bookmark system, ability to set a sleep timer so that the book pauses at a desired time and rewind and fast forward functions.

The Audible app also works with the other audio books you have previoulsy purchased and synced from iTunes.

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Posted in eBooks, iPad, iPhone, iPod

Posted by: Dave Burrows | July 17, 2010

Nokia and RIM attack Apple over Antennagate allegations

Apple yesterday decided to try and deflect the media attention they have been receiving on the iPhone 4 Antenna problem dubbed Antennagate by showing that both Nokia and RIM (Research In Motion) to having similar antenna flaws in their products.

Whether this was a wise move or not by Apple, they are definitely trying to show the world that this is a normal phenomena and showed a loss of signal to Nokia, RIM Blackberry and HTC phones depending on how you hold the phone in your hands.

By ousting both Nokia, RIM and HTC is one thing to try and deflect media attention, but by doing so you can be sure that both Nokia and RIM would come back with a lashing of words, and Nokia and RIM did just that…! No word yet from HTC who will probably want to stay under the radar at this point.

Nokia’s response was…
“Antenna design is a complex subject and has been a core competence at Nokia for decades, across hundreds of phone models. Nokia was the pioneer in internal antennas; the Nokia 8810, launched in 1998, was the first commercial phone with this feature.

Nokia has invested thousands of man hours in studying human behavior, including how people hold their phones for calls, music playing, web browsing and so on. As you would expect from a company focused on connecting people, we prioritize antenna performance over physical design if they are ever in conflict.

In general, antenna performance of a mobile device/phone may be affected with a tight grip, depending on how the device is held. That’s why Nokia designs our phones to ensure acceptable performance in all real life cases, for example when the phone is held in either hand. Nokia has invested thousands of man hours in studying how people hold their phones and allows for this in designs, for example by having antennas both at the top and bottom of the phone and by careful selection of materials and their use in the mechanical design.”

RIM’s response was…
“Apple’s attempt to draw RIM into Apple’s self-made debacle is unacceptable. Apple’s claims about RIM products appear to be deliberate attempts to distort the public’s understanding of an antenna design issue and to deflect attention from Apple’s difficult situation. RIM is a global leader in antenna design and has been successfully designing industry-leading wireless data products with efficient and effective radio performance for over 20 years. During that time, RIM has avoided designs like the one Apple used in the iPhone 4 and instead has used innovative designs which reduce the risk for dropped calls, especially in areas of lower coverage. One thing is for certain, RIM’s customers don’t need to use a case for their BlackBerry smartphone to maintain proper connectivity. Apple clearly made certain design decisions and it should take responsibility for these decisions rather than trying to draw RIM and others into a situation that relates specifically to Apple.”

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Posted in Android, Apple, HTC, News, Nokia, iPhone

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