Aug 29
Angry Birds, App Store, Apple, iPad, iPhone/iPod touch No Comments
The latest Theme 10 is among us for the insanely popular iPhone and iPad game Angry Birds (although, just for the iPad, for now…)
The newest theme is a continuation of the previous theme 9, and there is one more Golden Egg to find. Here it is…
Feb 03
Me, Mobile Phones, Technology, iPhone/iPod touch 2 Comments
In this post, I want to summarise the phones that I have had over the past few years. It’s amazing to see how things change over time!
This was my first ever phone. I was so excited! It was a hand-me-down from my mother, and after slipping in a cheap T-Mobile (just after they had changed from one2one!) pay as you go sim card – I was on my way! The phone was pretty decent too – colour screen, games, endless ringtones, etc. I was in love… until it dropped into a water bucket, and died.
After my incident with the 6100, I decided to get the 5140. It had just been released, and was really popular because of it’s really durable body and strength. It was also marketed out at people who enjoyed outdoor activities (which, incidentally, I was at the time…). In terms of features, it had basically everything the 6100 had, but with a camera. I could only get the phone on the Orange network, so I got a new PASG sim from them.
After a good few years at Orange, we switched to Vodafone because they had a great business plan deal on that would suit the whole family – incidentally, we are still on the same contract today. Because of the new contract, we could pick virtually any phone, and naturally, I went for the best at the time – the 750i. I was mostly lured in my the insane 2MP camera (the best in 2005!), but about half way through the 18 month contract, the phone turned from being the best thing in the world, to the worst. Everything, and I mean… everything, just stopped working correctly – and I had to put up with this for at least another 8 months!
This was the phone someone would dream about… and after becoming sick of Sony Ericsson’s dire reliability, I went back to Nokia and got wowed by the flippy screened N95. The specs and details with the phone simply were awesome – but it was just simply too big. It was actually a brick, the same materials used to build houses… I had an 18 month contract with the phone, but got so irritated half way through, I shoved the SIM card into my at-the-time girlfriends old phone, which I think was a Nokia 6000 series phone, similar to the 6100 and 5140 – but a bit weird looking!
The third phone I got with Vodafone on the same contract was the Samsung Tocco. This thing was pretty nice – although it was a pity that the touchscreen wasn’t as responsive as I had hoped. This was my first touchscreen phone, and I was amazed by the concept… but let down a little. I had this little over a year, and just two weeks out of warranty, accidentally took it with me in my wetsuit when I went surfing. Not good!
Phone-less on holiday was becoming hell, so I had to buy myself a new handset quickly, and preferably cheap! I owned an iPod touch at the same time, and didn’t need any other functions other than the ability to send messages and make phone calls! The cheapest phone Vodafone had in their shop, was this, the 527 – a Sagem phone branded ‘Vodafone’ to match the network. It was all of £25. Why so cheap? Well, I’ll just put it out there for you – THIS IS THE WORST PHONE IN THE WORLD, EVER.
And that concludes my phone history. Until a few weeks time, when I’ll be getting an…
The most epic phone ever. But my question is this – now that I’ll be switching to the iPhone, will I ever move away to another phone company? Or will I be iPhone outed for the rest of my life!?
Feb 22
App Store, iPhone/iPod touch No Comments
Hey guys,
Many of you iPhone & iPod touch users out there will have heard of the app X-Plane, released in September of last year. It is a really awesome flight simulator app that allows users to fly planes using the built in accelerometers and touchscreen. However, with every first app, there was a couple of bad things – cost, for example, it’s £5.99 here in the UK which is a lot for an app. The simulator, too, was a bit sluggish, had reports of crashing, limited number of flying locations and only 4 relatively unheard of aircrafts.
Well, the folks down at Laminar Research, decided to fix some of the issues customers were having by releasing two awesome new apps just before Christmas:
X-Plane-Airliner, and X-Plane-Helicopter. Both are much the same as the original, but, these versions have:
- More commonly known aircraft (in ‘Airliner’ you get the choice of a Boeing 777, 747, 787 and an Airbus A380, while in ‘Helicopter’, you get helicopters… obviously… which is cool)
- LOADS more airports
- Larger flying areas
- And, most importantly, at half price. Thats from $9.99 to $4.99, or £5.99 down to £2.99 where I am.
The app looks awesome. As a result, as soon as I heard the news of the app becoming available, I raced to the app store, read a couple of reviews, brought the Airliner version, and downloaded it.
The app is brilliant. After a couple of months of playing, I can safely say I’ve had no problems with it crashing or anything. The gameplay is fantastic – the accelerometer is very precise, and it’s got all the features of a desktop flight simulator, such as MS Flight Simulator X. I am also getting frequent free updates that are adding new features such as new locations, new planes and other fixes.
More recently, Laminar Research have also produced a fourth app to the X-Plane series, X-Plane-Extreme, that focusses of precise mobility and flying with aircraft such as a B-1 bomber and the F-22 Raptor. On release of this application, the prices of all four games were moved to £5.99 or $9.99 – Annoying for those who wanted to get in on the half price versions.
Later guys.
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