I have done a lot less gaming over the last few years and on the whole I’m glad of it – I’m happy being busy with friends and family.
But there is a category of games that inspires nostalgia – real time strategy games, of the school of Dune 2, Command and Conquer, Warcraft and Red Alert. Maybe because Dune 2 was one of the first PC-games I really got into, maybe because they provide a cerebral challenge as well as an entertainment hit, maybe because most of those games have a cheesey semi-interactive sci-fi or fantasy narrative running through them… but whatever the reason, it was with interest that I saw that one of the games my friend Noel introduced me to years ago – a Warcraft 3 map mod called ‘Defense of the Ancients’ – has a spiritual successor called (from the creators of DoTA) called League of Legends.
Unlike traditional RTS games, DoTA (and LoL) aggregate the RTS elements with more traditional RPG elements (uplevelling your characters, spellcasting) and with tower defense gameplay… AND make it social, so you get to (if you want and can persuade them to play) take out your friends.
Whilst I can’t quite see myself performing this degree of gaming orchestration again, I note with some amusement that there is a LoL tower defence game on the iPhone… so that might do it for me.
No! Renew your contract now if you’re out of the contract term! Negotiate a rate on your tariff equivalent to the iPhone subsidy you were hoping for – and start it now so you can work off some of those tediously long contracts ahead of the phone’s release.
Then, when you buy an iPhone5 outright whenever they come out, you’ll already be achieving the savings you needed to afford it via your mobile tariff reduction, and you’ll be ‘locked in’ for a shorter period.
Inspired?? I think so! Would try it myself, but am tempted by the ludicrously cheap monthly rolling 3 SIM only iPhone tariff – at £15 a month for enough minutes, 1GB internet access and 3000 text messages, I’m unlikely to top it irrespective of my negotiations with O2, especially now they think they’re the top mobile broadband provider in the UK… Just need to do the maths on the subsidy…
I used to spend a lot more time gaming than I do these days – the slightly dormant PS3, Xbox and Wii attest to that. But the iPhone has proved a good platform for the occasional gaming fix.
Huge fun. Original voices, clever upgrades to weapons and units, decent graphics for the gameplay style and compelling enough that you’ll be able to resist most of the in-game purchases – coins for upgrades – and instead just play the game obsessive compulsively until you clear wave 50 of the Deadites. There’s some slowdown when the waves get big – bring on the dual core iPhone 5 – but it’s not too bad.
My only significant criticism of the game? Only 50 waves… I’m hoping that a software patch will add a bit more variety to it.
This is a picture of a weed. Or possibly the leaf of a Lapland potato I brought back from Finland for planting. I have no idea.
My plan is to leave it for a bit until there is more discernible growth and to try to make a less than completely arbitrary judgement then. That’s when I read of LeafSnap – Leaf recognition software developed by Columbia University in the US. You take a picture of a leaf and it pattern matches against a database to tell you what it is. Could this make the difference?
Reviews of the app are not good on the Appstore. “Only works on US trees,” “Primitive pattern matching that returns dozens of matches”… and then there’s the fact that it only makes claim to cope with tree leaves.
But it’s a start. Technology will find a way to help my garden grow…
So, there were some pretty obvious features that made the iPhone4 a must for me – HD video recording, retina display, video calling, camera flash and a faster processor (the 3GS was creaking with iOS4).
Well, other than bugs in the software (which I’ve blogged about before), which should filter down to iPhone4 too, there’s less that I obviously need. Here’s a collection of rumours on which I’ve based my list so far…
Things I’d like but probably won’t pay for so far
1) Better flash/camera 2) A5 processor (multitasking poorly executed to date on iPhone) 3) Improved phone reception (not that I’ve had substantive problems here)
Things I don’t care about just yet
1) LTE support. No live networks here yet, maybe by iPhone6 time… 2) 3D photography. Not that I think Apple will go there. 3) Weight / colour – I can live with the iPhone the size it is 4) 1080p video output 5) NFC payments 6) Photo projection or other gimmickry
Things I’m not sure about:
1) Form factor. Do I need a 4" screen? I definitely don’t need an iPhone Nano. 2) Any Apple surprises.
All in all, it’s looking more like the iPhone5 will be more like the iPhone4S than a full-on device upgrade, so I may skip it…
Have I missed anything good? I’m not sure what else I need in a phone at this stage…
Can Google please upgrade the Google Translate iPhone app to include OCR so it can do this, but just for plain text on images? I don’t need a video feature or AR capability, or the clever editing that provides the illusion the translated text is on the billboard, sign or whatever, but it’d be awesome if it OCR’ed the text, translated it, and spat out a plain text English (or whatever-language) version of the sign, bit of paper, etc.
I’ve mentioned the coolness of the OCR video translation app (at least as far as the demos go) before, but if you haven’t seen it, check it out. A step towards Star Trek’s universal translators!
I’m something of a productivity fiend. If something seems fiddly when I’m working on it, in real life or at a computer, I hunt for a simpler workaround, or hack, or shortcut, or whatever’s the appropriate shorthand for it. Hence being a big fan of the Lifehacker blog and Videojug.
I’m also a massive advocate of the cloud. Most of the day-to-day personal productivity tools I use live on the Internet in some way.
So really it’s a mystery that I’ve gone so long without Evernote, a sort of DropBox-like service for text and audio notes and pictures that syncs across iPhone, iPad and any number of PC or Mac endpoints. It took Chris showing it to me on his Macbook to get me thinking I needed it.
Having been resoundingly and repeatedly convinced of the inadequacy of the iOS WordPress, I’m now writing these blog posts on it using my foldaway bluetooth keyboard on the commute home. The posts will save locally into a text file which will sync to my other devices when I fire up Evernote on there. Wonderful.
Now, unlike Seinfeld, when I wake up with an idea in the middle of the night and scribble it down, I not only won’t have to worry about illegible handwriting and losing the punchline, but it’ll pop up on my desktop later on when I’ve all but forgotten I wrote it down in the first place.won’t have to worry about illegible handwriting and losing the punchline, but it’ll pop up on my desktop later on when I’ve all but forgotten I wrote it down in the first place.
The product, for those interested, is intuitive, designed for touch, and works seamlessly. A joy.
Dear Mr Jobs (and also FAO the nice folk at Google).
Five months into my iPhone 4 and a few days ahead of the release of iOS 4.2 (which I don’t imagine will fix any of this), here’s some things I’d like you to do in iOS 5.
1) Fix the on-screen notifications. One notification at a time only? With a multitasking phone with push notifications on dozens of apps? BORKED.
2) Swype. Android and Nokia do it for text input, and its pretty awesome.
3) Proper Gmail client. Y’know, again, like Android. Your threaded conversation is ok, but not great. Google, don’t be petty about the platform. Plenty of loyal Google users use iPhones, get over it!
4) Proper Gmaps client. Y’know, again, like Android… with turn-based Nav and other good features. As above to Google folks.
5) Pre-emptive dialling. This was the only thing I missed from Windows Mobile 6.x (and earlier) – where you typed in a number and it used pre-emptive entry to work out who you wanted from your address book. Much easier than searching for a name in the contacts…
6) A more dynamic home screen. This time its Windows Phone 7 that has stepped up its game.
7) Speed up Appstore browsing. It’s a little slow.
I’m happy for you to leave out Flash. It sucks, and the sooner the world realises that HTML5 is the way to do things, the better.
Well, that’s it from me for now. What do you think needs changing in iOS?
Ok, so technically I tried these whilst cycling this morning rather than on an actual run, but quick initial assessment…
This iPhone sports armband works pretty well – other than the fact that with the extended strap you need guns the size of a small redwood to have it fit snugly, it holds the iPhone secure, gives good access to the iPhone screen and generally does the job. You can fiddle the strap so it fits comfortably on more modest guns. The lack of a fitted screenguard will make it less useful in the rain, but I’d rather have unimpeded access to mess around with the interface the rest of the time… Downside for me is that the iPhone needs to be out of its regular case to fit in it, but I guess any armband that didn’t require that would be pretty bulky.
SprintGPS is a competing app with Runkeeper (which I’ve mentioned before) which I decided to give a try because it a) supports cycling as well as running & walking and b) they followed me on Twitter and left a comment here, so was impressed by their social media prowess ;-). Like Runkeeper, it uses a GPS lock on your iPhone to track pace, location, etc., over a timed workout (giving you splits, average speeds, estimated calorie burn etc.) – unlike Runkeeper it also has music controls in the free version (vital until multi-tasking with iPhone OS4.0 kicks in, as I discovered when a phone call during my half-marathon training run on Sunday interrupted my playlist, never to be resumed) and a few other cute features. Social media sharing via Twitter and Facebook is pretty seamless (although not quite as pretty as Runkeeper, which gives you a thumbnail map in your share) and GPS lock was quick and effective. The online route map and analytics are pretty good too, although again this doesn’t feel quite as slick as Runkeeper’s.
Tempted to try this on my next long run… What does anybody else think?
Update: SprintGPS free only lets you save a couple of activities, rendering it pointless. I’m back with Runkeeper, and considering RunKeeper Pro (but will wait for iPhone OS 4.0 before I do that…) The armband, however, works brilliantly when running too.
I’m not a naturally fit person. Exercise has never been an easy thing, and I’ve never really ‘trained’ as such. Talking to Sensei Paul about his marathon training, it became incredibly apparent how aware he is of things like his own pace, heart rate, the distance and time he’s trained for, his energy levels… well, there’s an app for some of that, I discovered.
Nike+, a combination heart-rate monitor (HRM), wireless pedometer and reasonably clever iPhone app seemed a sensible first port of call. It was relatively cheap (about £40), it would help work out pace, duration, etc., and there’s a HRM with the sportsband. By working to improve my pace and trying to get my training heart rate up, I’d gradually improve. However… after reading a couple of articles like this one it became apparent that the Nike+ tool isn’t massively accurate. Worse, there were mixed reports on the (non-replaceable) battery life of the sensor, some saying it lasted as few as 30 miles (other saying it lasted for 2 years). And worse still… I gave up Nike shoes about 5 years ago, so would have to use it in a shoelace pouch… which according to fellow B2L runner Susannah makes it less reliable.
So that got scratched off the list.
Next up was the Garmin Forerunner 305; £133 worth of giant-ass GPS watchery. Now; other than cost and the fact that the watch face was the size of a small heli-pad (you should read some of the Amazon reviews), this seemed like a better idea. Runners loved this; even Sensei Paul, who only got a mobile phone about 6 months ago (seriously, its true!), thinks this is a good idea. Everyone wanted me to get one so they could play with it… but, I’m saving up for a house and an iPad, and it was a lot of dosh… so I decided to try an iPhone app first and see if it matched the features in any way without draining my iPhone’s battery down to zero.
Enter RunKeeper Free. It is, erm, free, uses the iPhone’s GPS to track your pace, duration of run, route of run, elevation and everything else.
And it is awesome – amazing for something that costs zero pounds and zero pence. It does drain the iPhone battery quite quickly – I run listening to music and a 30 minute run takes off about 15% of the battery life of my 3GS. A 50 minute run took out 25%, so there’s some proportionality. But given that my longest run is going to be a couple of hours, and the iPhone charges up hella fast, I don’t think its going to be an issue. The GPS lock is quick (assuming you turn Wifi off, which apparently interferes). The app keeps tabs of all of your previous runs – here’s one of mine.
The only problem I have with RunKeeper is that the iPhone needs to be out in hand… so I’ve had to invest in an armband – we’ll see how much difference that makes when it turns up.
I’ve used RunKeeper three times and its proving effective in motivating me to improve my efforts (my slightly obssessive personality kicking in again, trying to beat my previous paces on similar runs)… I have been followed on Twitter by the makers of an App called SprintGPS which I might try out as it supports other exercises too (cycling etc). Will keep blog-readers posted on progress…
Do you use running technology? What’s your view?
Armand David's personal weblog: dadhood, technology, running, media, food, stuff and nonsense.
I’m something of a productivity fiend. If something seems fiddly when I’m working on it, in real life or at a computer, I hunt for a simpler workaround, or hack, or shortcut, or whatever’s the appropriate shorthand for it. Hence being a big fan of the