Omio

iPhone Getting Blue In The Tooth, At A Cost

By Ernest DokucloseAuthor: Ernest Doku Name: Ernest Doku
Email: ernest.doku@omio.com
Site: http://blog.omio.com
About: I like gadgets, loads! I like talking about them, writing about them, using them, watching other people use them though binoculars... Some would say it was an unhealthy fascination, but then I'd be all like, "Shh...," and go back to doing gadget-related things. Hit me up on Xbox Live or PSN, I'm EJStyleS. I promise to give you a good match as well as talk about things that aren't gadgets. A bit.See Authors Posts (128)

A2DP Bluetooth. Not often a feature high on people’s lists of must-have functionality, but when it is taken away, it is sorely missed. The freedom of wireless headphones is a beautiful experience, and one which iPhone owners have had to do without…until now.

It seems that every iPhone accessory manufacturer was waiting for this 3G launch to pounce with all manner of wares, but this device connects to any member of the iFamily, allowing use of Bluetooth stereo headsets on the go. Take this from harsh personal experience, any opportunity to avoid dropping an iPhone on a busy train concourse should be grabbed with both hands.

Fair enough, but a mobile telephone with Bluetooth functionality already shouldn’t be dabbling in add-ons to perform tasks which should come easily. With unpleasant side effects like the plastic back and shortened life span for the iPhone 3Gs new aerials, what harm could one more do? Having said that, there is no moving files with Bluetooth, no sending contacts/business cards, no Bluetooth headset supported aside from Apple’s own brand…what did we expect?

Either way, this Infinxx adaptor costs around £40, and attempts to be as inoffensive as possible. Until the inevitable app sells basic functions back to us at a premium. Yup, it’s coming.

Source: Gizmodo

Best. iPhone. Accessory. Ever.

By Ernest DokucloseAuthor: Ernest Doku Name: Ernest Doku
Email: ernest.doku@omio.com
Site: http://blog.omio.com
About: I like gadgets, loads! I like talking about them, writing about them, using them, watching other people use them though binoculars... Some would say it was an unhealthy fascination, but then I'd be all like, "Shh...," and go back to doing gadget-related things. Hit me up on Xbox Live or PSN, I'm EJStyleS. I promise to give you a good match as well as talk about things that aren't gadgets. A bit.See Authors Posts (128)

Some companies selling accessories see at least one sucker for every iPhone. This inevitably leads to some of the most pointless accessories since the iPod.

However, for every diamond embossed rubber case and iPhone holster, there is a genuinely amazing product.

This Swiss Army black box from Macally seems to do everything short of culling useless contacts on your phone and making convenient excuses when you’re off sick.

The Powerlink is initially a vanilla 2GB USB flash drive. Ok… but then it has that iPod/iPhone connector on the other end. This allows it to be an adaptor for data syncing your device to a computer and it stores power on an internal battery to be an emergency phone charger. Brilliant.

Only $49.99, and it’s just a patent away from release. Second only to Phone Fingers as best iPhone gift ever.

Metal Gear Sold : We Interrupt This Game For A Word From Our Sponsor…

By Ernest DokucloseAuthor: Ernest Doku Name: Ernest Doku
Email: ernest.doku@omio.com
Site: http://blog.omio.com
About: I like gadgets, loads! I like talking about them, writing about them, using them, watching other people use them though binoculars... Some would say it was an unhealthy fascination, but then I'd be all like, "Shh...," and go back to doing gadget-related things. Hit me up on Xbox Live or PSN, I'm EJStyleS. I promise to give you a good match as well as talk about things that aren't gadgets. A bit.See Authors Posts (128)

Yes, Metal Gear Solid 4 is an awesome game. Possibly the best game ever in fact. As well as taking overblown action sequences and hifalutin dialogue to unseen levels, this game has a less appealing side effect of delusions of cinematic grandeur - product placement. Lots of product placement.

The power of the Playstation 3 has been harnessed in order to shill all manner of gadgets to their captive audience. From Macbooks and iPods, to Triumph motorcycles, to alarm clocks, the new title really pushes the envelope of selling out. It may add a new level of realism in a graphically amazing title, but it also adds new levels of cynicism as Sony Ericsson manages to shoehorn their new W62S phone into a number of scenes.

Photos (and micro-spoilers) follow…

Read the rest of this entry »

Blackberry Gets Widget-y With Zumobi

By Ernest DokucloseAuthor: Ernest Doku Name: Ernest Doku
Email: ernest.doku@omio.com
Site: http://blog.omio.com
About: I like gadgets, loads! I like talking about them, writing about them, using them, watching other people use them though binoculars... Some would say it was an unhealthy fascination, but then I'd be all like, "Shh...," and go back to doing gadget-related things. Hit me up on Xbox Live or PSN, I'm EJStyleS. I promise to give you a good match as well as talk about things that aren't gadgets. A bit.See Authors Posts (128)

Finally, an app for Windows Media phone and now Blackberry users to rub in the face of those smug iPhone guys. Zumobi is a slick widget driven interface, giving access to a variety of widget-style information tabs called ’tiles’.

Similar to the popular Widsets, it boils down popular websites into 16 tiles which can then be organised  allowing for a constant stream of personalised content to the phone all on one screen. Each of which can be interacted with, offering additional information just by using the keypad. Think of it as a pretty RSS feed for mobile phones, full of the usual news, games, gossip and entertainment stuff.

Providing a nice alternative to surfing, it autoupdates the content on tiles whether zoomed in or not, allowing for a one stop screen for new content. It also allows quick access to all your favourite social Web 2.0 sites like Facebook, so you can change your interesting and witty status updates even more frequently!

They have had a good relationship with WinMo handsets for some time, and are now branching out into taking advantage of the Blackberry boys, a device crying out for really great apps. Yes, enterprising minds have discovered Zumobi as a good way to target adverts at you based on your choice of tiles, but it is a small price to pay for a very useful service, so small that the app is free.

Try it now, just sign up to their site here.

Sega : “iPhone As Powerful As Dreamcast.”

By Ernest DokucloseAuthor: Ernest Doku Name: Ernest Doku
Email: ernest.doku@omio.com
Site: http://blog.omio.com
About: I like gadgets, loads! I like talking about them, writing about them, using them, watching other people use them though binoculars... Some would say it was an unhealthy fascination, but then I'd be all like, "Shh...," and go back to doing gadget-related things. Hit me up on Xbox Live or PSN, I'm EJStyleS. I promise to give you a good match as well as talk about things that aren't gadgets. A bit.See Authors Posts (128)

Sega are “deliriously happy” at the moment with Super Monkey Ball’s success on the iPhone App Store, and when talking of the future at E3, they mentioned the handset as a force to be reckoned with as a platform in it’s own right.

Oh, and they reckon the iPhone is as powerful as their last console, the Dreamcast. Exactly. Let’s just hope it doesn’t befall the same fate…

The President of Sega America, Simon Jeffery waxed lyrical about it during an interview with Kotaku, which you may find here. He also took the opportunity to pledge their future support, and insult Nokia’s gaming wasteland in the same breath: “It’s everything that the N-Gage wasn’t as a gaming device.” Ouch.

Our opinion mirrors the many vocal members of the comments thread, release some Sega classics and we will all be very happy. Touchscreen Samba De Amigo? A decent Sonic game? All very welcome.

Source : Kotaku

Android Code Apartheid Makes Devs Unhappy

By Ernest DokucloseAuthor: Ernest Doku Name: Ernest Doku
Email: ernest.doku@omio.com
Site: http://blog.omio.com
About: I like gadgets, loads! I like talking about them, writing about them, using them, watching other people use them though binoculars... Some would say it was an unhealthy fascination, but then I'd be all like, "Shh...," and go back to doing gadget-related things. Hit me up on Xbox Live or PSN, I'm EJStyleS. I promise to give you a good match as well as talk about things that aren't gadgets. A bit.See Authors Posts (128)

It seems like every new development in the Google’s Android platform saga is more depressing than the last. The current state of affairs is massive unrest in the Android community over the Software Development Kit not being updated for over four months, leaving many coders creating apps for a platform which doesn’t yet exist, with software that is not fully formed.

Expecting people to be making compelling apps with this old kit is one thing, but the kicker was the fact that a spangly Android kit was available for a select group of guys. The 50 finalists in the Android Developer’s Challenge are competing for $10 million, and the fact that Google has given these few an unfair advantage whilst the other thousands of members are left out in the cold has annoyed many.

This move obviously drew the ire of a bunch of developers, but that wasn’t enough for Google. To send a message about this new SDK to every single competitor, including all the losers is just mean. So whilst the chosen ones toddled off to beaver away on their apps with new software, thousands of Android fans got nothing. No bone from Google, no update, no new version, only a message to the have-nots which seemed to say: “You want a new build? You want to help our platform? We don’t care. Get out of our face.”

For Google to alienate so many that are integral to success is a bad idea. To allow elite engineers into their inner sanctum is obviously great, but at the expense of all of the others slaving away on old versions, with no promise of success, or even compatibility? All of these people coding Android apps blind is testament to their commitment, and Google is definitely messing up their plans by cutting them out. It’s not as though they can’t switch and develop for Symbian or worse still, Apple…

To still insist that Android handsets and software for other manufacturers will be out by the end of the year, and yet have no solid specs for people to work with in mid-July is disappointing. Open Source software should be exactly that. OPEN. Give it away, let the guys who really matter make stuff. Then package it up real nice and sell it! Apple definitely had it right in this respect, devs are happy despite the short leash with regards to Digital Rights and profit sharing, but Google is underestimating the value of their most important commodity hugely.

Without them, Android could be nothing.

Wireless Charging With The WildCharger

By Ernest DokucloseAuthor: Ernest Doku Name: Ernest Doku
Email: ernest.doku@omio.com
Site: http://blog.omio.com
About: I like gadgets, loads! I like talking about them, writing about them, using them, watching other people use them though binoculars... Some would say it was an unhealthy fascination, but then I'd be all like, "Shh...," and go back to doing gadget-related things. Hit me up on Xbox Live or PSN, I'm EJStyleS. I promise to give you a good match as well as talk about things that aren't gadgets. A bit.See Authors Posts (128)

Living in a sea of trailing wires and uncharged mobile phones? Not in the mood to use a solar powered, battery powered or even dance powered phone charger? Then have we got a device for you!

This flat panel which contains the science part may look like a cross between a grill, a solar panel and a heater, but is the future of charging. No chance of losing the charger, no drawer full of old wires for phones lost in the mists of time. Simply place your device onto it, and it boosts the battery just like it was plugged into the wall!

Except that’s not quite the case. Obviously the panel connects to the mains, but the Wildcharger also requires a special adapter which clamps onto the back of your phone, and it is the special contact points on the adapter which transfer the charge from the pad to your handset. So it only requires that your battery cover be replaced with this adapter, and away you go!

Except that it is not quite that easy just yet. So far, only the Motorola RAZR v3 is supported by this technology, which sounds quite a narrow audience but some recently released stats indicate otherwise… So all the shots of iPods and the like charging are planned for the future, but is not ready to boost your batteries just yet. How they have dealt with the immovable iPhone battery also poses an interesting question, as it sits on their ‘coming soon’ list amongst all manner of kit.

Despite the many articles and plaudits this device has accrued including one of Time Magazine’s Best Inventions of the Year (2007), it still seems to be stuck in 1st gear, busy asking the consumers which adapter to introduce next, and whether they would prefer it “with sparkles,” whatever that means. Hey, why not try an adapter for any other phone? That could be a start…

For $90, the charger pad and adapter are yours, which is a small price to pay for quite a cool concept. However, until it works in a more versatile fashion and shares more in execution with the beautiful Microsoft Surface, this technology is destined to be consigned to the “nice idea, but who cares?” pile.

Microsoft ‘Develops’ iPhone App, World Implodes

By Ernest DokucloseAuthor: Ernest Doku Name: Ernest Doku
Email: ernest.doku@omio.com
Site: http://blog.omio.com
About: I like gadgets, loads! I like talking about them, writing about them, using them, watching other people use them though binoculars... Some would say it was an unhealthy fascination, but then I'd be all like, "Shh...," and go back to doing gadget-related things. Hit me up on Xbox Live or PSN, I'm EJStyleS. I promise to give you a good match as well as talk about things that aren't gadgets. A bit.See Authors Posts (128)

There is a difference in the functionality and availability of items on the App Store, depending on which part of the globe you reside on. One of the few which have made us pretty jealous of living in the US (for once) is called BoxOffice.

The clever little program allows you to browse local theaters cinemas to see what’s on, get movie screening times, read reviews courtesy of Rotten Tomatoes, even book tickets from your iPhone! It’s strange how there is still no way of finding out easily which films are showing where, and before the internet we had to sit and wait for page 33 of Ceefax to see what was happening at Swiss Cottage Odeon.

Of course, it uses the GPS location from the sexy iPhone 3G to tell you the nearest cinema too. The interesting part is that it was developed by one dude, C# compiler and all round fly guy Cyrus Najamabadi of Microsoft. Seems like he’s been doing a little moonlighting on his days off…

Having said that, an interesting article from way back on CNN Money shows that Microsoft was totally willing to exploit the possibilities of the iPhone to make some App Store moolah. It is true that for many years there has been a fragile but lucrative alliance between the perceived competitors, with Mac Exchange and Office proving a cash cow for everyone involved. But it’s better to imagine them as bitter rivals in towering skyscrapers facing each other like Romeo & Juliet, isn’t it?

Could BoxOffice be the first product of Microsoft’s devs playing with the SDK? It isn’t like they are going to be plastering the Microsoft name over any apps they develop, unless related to their big guns like Office travelling to the iPhone.

Having said that, those who have enjoyed a sip from both cups say that the Movies.app for jailbroken phones is somewhat better than Apple’s free but official offering. The former also gives users the opportunity to stream trailers, but has the same shortcoming of being confined to American popcorn emporia. Hopefully we’ll see an increase in the amount of practical apps, as well as ones that cater for the global market Apple was so eager to court this time around…

Omio iPhone 3G Update : It’s coming.

Romeo & Juliet Update : It’s been brought to our attention that this was originally a play which featured no skyscrapers, or guns, or car chases…which sounds infinitely more dull. The reference above relates to the movie, not this…play.

Source: Gizmodo

iPhone App Store Opens Early : Omio’s Pick Of The Best

By Ernest DokucloseAuthor: Ernest Doku Name: Ernest Doku
Email: ernest.doku@omio.com
Site: http://blog.omio.com
About: I like gadgets, loads! I like talking about them, writing about them, using them, watching other people use them though binoculars... Some would say it was an unhealthy fascination, but then I'd be all like, "Shh...," and go back to doing gadget-related things. Hit me up on Xbox Live or PSN, I'm EJStyleS. I promise to give you a good match as well as talk about things that aren't gadgets. A bit.See Authors Posts (128)

A pleasant surprise is that the Apple Store has opened up ahead of time, and is chock full of a variety of programs of varying prices and usefulness!

From a Mandarin Audio Phrasebook to a stargazing companion via digital Etch-A-Sketch, there is a bewildering array of different morsels to taste. They vary from the appetising sum of ‘free’, to £24 for an exquisitely detailed set of Netter’s Anatomical flashcards.

As rumoured, there is plenty of entertainment here, from Super Monkey Ball of iPhone 3G unveiling fame to Moo-Cow-Music Band, a selection of virtual instruments which use multi-touch to do cool stuff like play chords on a piano. Games like Moto Racer flex the iPhone’s muscles a bit, showing how capable it is at doing a full 3D arcade game, Ridge Racer-style.

Air Hockey, eBooks, even a Virtual Lightsaber goes to show the scatter gun approach Apple has taken, putting up a buffet of size, complexity (and possibly quality), letting people pick and choose what they like…

Some of the best items, just like in life, are free. The Remote, allowing control over iTunes or Apple TV from your handset is brilliant in it’s simplicity, working over wi-fi and allowing the album artwork to appear on the iPhone as the song is chosen. This is currently the number one free app on the site, closely followed by the usual suspects of social networking stuff.

AIM, Facebook, Twitter and MySpace have all staked their claim on always connected phone lovers, as has PayPal with a streamlined money transfer program and fan-fave Shazam. The latter allows TrackID-style functionality for the iPhone, simply hold your phone up to the speaker and it tells you what’s playing, for free! The fact that it links into iTunes if you’d like to buy the track is the masterstroke…

Unfortunately, the apps cannot be used until the version 2.0 software comes out, so only the lucky 3G owners and those acquiring the update through nefarious means are free to sample the wares on display.

All in all the App Store looks to be a brilliant platform for small time developers to gain instant recognition with a free download, as much as a delivery tool for business users to acquire a robust set of instruments to make the iPhone work for them.

Whilst some look suspiciously familiar from their renegade hacked iPhone days, all the programs have been buffed to an Apple sheen before release onto a slick distribution channel as iTunes. It is exciting to see how the App Store will develop and grow from these strong beginnings, and a playing field that allows a backroom developer the chance to rub shoulders with behemoths like British Airways has to be a Good Thing.

However, enterprising companies like Carling have already found it a brilliant arena to advertise with the iPint. Impressive.

Roll on 2.0…

iPhone Ready To Get Pushed Around By MobileMe…And First iPhone 3G In The Wild!

By Ernest DokucloseAuthor: Ernest Doku Name: Ernest Doku
Email: ernest.doku@omio.com
Site: http://blog.omio.com
About: I like gadgets, loads! I like talking about them, writing about them, using them, watching other people use them though binoculars... Some would say it was an unhealthy fascination, but then I'd be all like, "Shh...," and go back to doing gadget-related things. Hit me up on Xbox Live or PSN, I'm EJStyleS. I promise to give you a good match as well as talk about things that aren't gadgets. A bit.See Authors Posts (128)

Apple is pulling down their Mac site tomorrow to perform an emergency install-ectomy for push mail client MobileMe, which is starting up in tandem with the iPhone 3G launch.

This service allows all your data to float around in space, ready to be updated on all synched machines at the same time. So add a new contact or set a date in your calendar whilst on the go, and MobileMe will update your PC or Mac with the same info automatically and instantly. The same applies if you are at your base of operations and make some changes. Handy. Oh, and it also works with Outlook if you’re looking to be at your job’s beck and call just like your Blackberry-owning chums!

This is the thing about a global rollout…with lucky hobos like Mr. First iPhone 3G chilling outside the Vodafone store in New Zealand, and MobileMe ready for their launch, will stuff like the App Store be on at the flick of switch or a staggered global release?

Oh, and here are the first pictures of an unboxed iPhone 3G, courtesy of Engadget and iPhone Portugal. Guess the Portuguese aren’t just about creating unfathomably good footballers…click on!

Read the rest of this entry »