Smarter Geek

After lots of rumours about Bing being the default search engine for the iPhone and iPad it seems to have been squashed with the images of the iPad that Apple have released. Now in theory this is something that could be changed easily as it is just a case of changing the default setting however this is looking less likely.

1. Google can be seen as the search provider in Safari.

2. Maps used for the Map application are from Google. (Map on right is from Google Maps, note they are the same)

Here are 4 videos showing Steve Jobs unveiling his 3 greatest achievements. Now some might say that the iPad is his 4 great achievement but this is really yet to be seen. Time will tell… But i doubt it.

In the meant time check out the video’s below for a trip down memory lane.

1984: Apple Macintosh

2001: iPod

2007: iPhone

2010: iPad

There have been so many Microsoft/iPhone/iPad rumours lately that it has got me thinking that what ever this new device Apple is going to be launching on January 27th one could be mistaken that it wasn’t going to be a Microsoft powered device.

Don’t think so? here few points I think are worth considering…

Fact

1. iPhone (and now Snow Leopard) already natively supports Microsoft Active Sync for email synchronisation with corporate Exchange email servers.
2. Microsoft recently released the Bing iPhone App which allow many people to access the Bing services from the iPhone so Microsoft know how to provide Bing services to the iPhone.
3. Microsoft has released a Seadragon Mobile deep zoom image app that is the technology Bing Maps uses.
4. Microsoft has released Microsoft Tag reader application that would be really useful addition to the iPad.

Speculation

1. In a previous article I spoke about the rumour of the next iPhone and iPad having Bing as the default search engine.
2. Now on The iPhone Blog web site they mention that Bing would be used for both Search and Maps. This makes a lot of sense as the two a normally very interconnected and if Apple were going to dump Google then changing the mapping provider would also be a highly likely.
3. As Bing Maps beta is no more it would make a lot of sense that this mean its now ready for production use ahead of the iPhone 4/iPad announcement.
4. Now admittedly this is a little more of a stretch but if Bing Maps is going to be on the iPhone 4/iPad this could also mean we are going to see Silverlight on the device. This would mean that there be a lot more support than just IIS streaming for Silverlight (See Microsoft ‘worked with Apple’ for Silverlight on iPhone, says Goldfarb).
5. Then today during the recoding of Windows Weekly episode 140 Paul Thurrott mention that he has been speaking with Microsoft about how Hotmail is now the only email service that does not support push email support. He then mentioned that Microsoft said they were aware of this and they were working on it. Weather this means that Hotmail will be supported natively on the iPhone with the other mail services (Exchange, MobileMe, Gmail, Yahoo! Mail and AOL) or if this mean they will enabled Active Sync support like Gmail on hotmail has to be seen. But it would seem that push mail support for hotmail is coming to the iPhone… Yeah!

Now I will be the first to admit that I would be totally shocked if all of these predictions/speculations come true… But if they did… the iPad might finally be a device that might just build a bridge over the huge device between the Apple/Microsoft fan boys.

Just saw this Copying dialogue box while I was coping all my photos from my iPhone to my local hard drive. Needless to say it is very un-nerving to see “Moving” in the “Copying” dialogue box… Luckily it turned out it only copied the files as i have intended.

A while ago I wrote a blog about what I liked and hated about my iPhone 3GS which I have updated over time. I have re-posted this article again in preparation of the iPhone 4.0 OS upgrade which Apple might be announcing and the end of this month. Check back soon I will be updating the list as more official information come out from Apple.

Primary HATE

• No Multitasking
• Can’t manually install applications
• No file system to share information between applications (Hence also no memory card support)
• I hate how easy it is to reply to an SMS but then you realised you are not in the conversations you think you were and you send an SMS to someone else
• Cant apply custom schedule to email sync to have push email during hours and manually sync after hours.
• New: Cant use the phone as a Internet Wi-Fi hotspot
• New: Cant customise the home screen
• New: Can set a background image
• New: No native Task application
• New: Only limited Active Sync support
• New: Only a simple notification system
• New: Can’t chose a custom SMS tone

Annoyances

• I hate how doing a 0.0.1 upgrade to iTunes is still 99mb download
• I hate how the soft plastic on the sync cable has started to crack on 3 months
• I hate how my headphones are broken and nobody seems to stock proper 3GS headphones.
• I hate how iTunes needs to be running to sync podcast. They should be able to do this in the background as a services. Then again Apple really struggles with concept of multi-tasking
• You have to press the edit button to forward an SMS messages…. That’s like having to click start to shutdown a computer…
• Can’t change the reminder tone
• No profile support to automatically silent the phone during a meeting. Like Windows Mobile has had for years!!!
• I hate how meeting reminders don’t set an alert automatically to 15 minutes.
• I hate how you can’t control what type of meeting it is when you created it (Private).
• Cant change the default search engine in safari from either Yahoo or Google
• Cant sync contact and calendar from Hotmail over the air
• Read status of emails does not save back to hotmail. Granted this is a pop3 issues but this is something i can do on the Windows Mobile
• Battery life is still very short…
• I can tether the phone using Telstra… Granted this can be enabled by the network but its also because uses a different APN address. I can now tether the phone via Bluetooth and USB now that Telstra has allowed this option. Still very disappointed that this was a configuration on the phone that my network carrier has control over.
• Included applications (YouTube,stocks,weather) all force you to use the one data provider. It would be nice to be able to pick and chose other data providers.
• Cant paste into the setup Calender subscription field
• Able to change the ring tones to use a custom sounds out of the box
• Cant copy files to the device. I would like to store my favourite photos on the device in full resolution but iTunes converts them before syncing.
• Don’t like how the phone is not usable if you are in the middle of a sync
• Photos are down sampled when they are synced to the phone
• Cant add attachments to emails (like photos). You can send emails with images in it, but you cant add one to an existing email that you have already started to compose.
• Every time i make a change in iTunes it wants to sync the phone again. Why cant this just happen in the background!
• I cant select multiple emails and mark them as read or un-read
• I cant manually select which podcasts i can sync to my phone
• Cant lock the screen when running a video podcast. I can pause it… wait… and then play it again using my headphone controls but this is just a pain. (Update: if you pause the video playback and then hit the sleep button and then press the middle button on your headphones it starts to play the video with the screen blank.)
• when sending images from the photo viewer they are down sampled to 1024×768 without warning… It would be nice to be asked before sending… Do you want to reduce the size this image before sending?
• I want to be able to configured a home page for safari
• I cant see the full date on the home screen.
• It would be nice to see more information on the lock screen like an up coming appointment.
• I want to be able to mark podcast as read
• I hate that when i sync my phone the podcast i am listening to stops and then when i press play it will forget what i was listening to and start playing a random song.
• I also hate that when i go back a podcast i was listening to when i started to sync it forgot where i was in the podcast 
• This one is so obvious i don’t know why i did not think of it before… I cant play WMA and WMV’s natively on the device. Almost everyone other non-Apple media device can do it so why not Apple…?
• The update to the OS from 3.0.0 to 3.0.1 is 300mb which is the whole OS image… Surly you can do incremental patches if its only a 0.0.1 upgrade of the device…
• You have to tether your phone to your computer to sync content with it… why can it just use wireless.
• Apple blocks application that reproduce the functionality of the phone such as Google Voice. Not that I would use Google Voice… its just the principal i hate.

Things I Love

• The NUI – This is by far and away the biggest draw of the iPhone. They really have nailed the Natural User Interface its smooth
  • Capacitive touch is really nice and this adds a lot to the UI experience

Like

• I like the video camera
• Podcasting
• I like the range of accessories that you can get because all the devices are the same size and shape.