iPhone XS Max

Another year, another iPhone. This time, the XS (Max). The biggest, best, yada yada iPhone Apple has ever made.

 

With the obligatory cheesy movie from Johnny Ive describing the amazing build process.

 

Except this one has one massive technical feature that does, indeed, make it different from the other iPhones. It supports eSIM, and amazingly, in China is available as a physical dual-SIM version.

 

While I did think about trying to get hold of the China physical dual-SIM version, I decided against it because I wasn’t sure what bloatware / backdoor was on the device thanks to the large Chinese market that Apple would be desperate to tap into.

 

So I got the local eSIM version from my carrier, and other than being bigger, I didn’t really notice much difference. Except when I travelled.

 

I managed to test the eSIM functionality using a company called Gigsky, in San Francisco, Thailand and Hong Kong. And other than paying a premium for the service from Gigsky, it worked perfectly and better than advertised! Buy the second data-only eSIM for the country you wish to use it, “download” it, and hey presto, 2nd SIM!

 

Coverage was adequate (not brilliant), and speeds were average to ok. But better than roaming rates, better than hunting for a local SIM and a device to carry it and infinitely more convenient to literally do nothing but switch your phone on! Awesome.

 

Punchline : if you travel, get an iPhone XS / XR. Otherwise, don’t waste your time and skip this version.

Bowers & Wilkins PX headphones

I have a headphone fetish. I know. Its a problem.

 

• AKG K550 - simply the best pair of wired headphones for sitting down, listening. Painful because they’re so damn big, but pure sonic bliss. Absolutely the best pair of “permanently connected to your amp” headphones for all kinds of music. Probably the nicest to my hearing.
• beyerdynamic T51i - simply the best pair of wired headphones for portable use. Awesome to use, awesome to travel with, but so damn expensive I’m scared to. Probably equal to the AKG’s in terms of sound reproduction, but the cable just gets in the way so it doesn’t get used as much as it should.
• Bose QC35 - simply the best pair of wireless headphones I’ve used. And the noise cancellation ? Sublime! My go-to for sustained listening while being portable to use, and nothing else will be used while actually wanting to listen to something while on a plane.
• Apple AirPods - my go-to portable headphones. No wires, sound isn’t totally rubbish, and the pairing is really easy and works well. Exceeded my expectations by a country mile.
• Klipsch X12i - I had a pair of X10i’s, and they just were overused. Amazing wired in-ear headphones, small and discrete.These used to be my go-to for portable use, but today are only used to provide background when on a plane to let me sleep.
• Bose Soundlink on-ear - not bad headphones, but nothing superlative either.
• Sennheinser RS180 - old faithful, used for those heavy TV / movie watching nights when I don’t want to disturb anyone else.

 

 

The newest addition is a pair of Bowers & Wilkins PX headphones. They’re well priced, and incredibly well presented and made. They just ooze quality, and look like they’ll outlast me.

 

I’ve only used them for two days, but some initial impressions;

• I like that I can adjust the level of noise cancellation (default options are Office, City and Plane) and the amount of vocal to let in (it can apparently tell if someone is speaking)
• I love the build quality and fancy schmancy case it comes with (although I would prefer a hard case)
• Bose has better noise reduction
• They’re very heavy
• USB-C charging is a plus!
• Battery life seems good
• Bass seems heavy and unrealistic (grr, catering to the Beats crowd)
• They do go louder than the Bose, but your ears feel more fatigued

 

I’m doing some travelling, so will put them through their paces to have a point of comparison; right now, the Bose QC35 look like they’re a better pair of headphones in terms of comfort and audio quality.

VAST Networks

I am incredibly proud of the work my company, VAST Networks, has done. As the CTO, I am responsible for

1. Continuously rearchitecting the network to deliver robust and varied services
2. Deploying new hotspots
3. Exploring and finding more efficient, cheaper and/or more scalable ways of deploying new hotspots
4. Supporting and maintaining the hotspot locations
5. Developing and keeping current products and overall network health

 

Our work over 2.5 years has resulted in us winning the Best Wi-Fi Service Provider in the World 2017, and Most Affordable Service Provider in the World 2017 as recognised by Wi-Fi Now. We were also shortlisted for Best Wireless Infrastructure in the World by the WBA, which we lost to Cisco. Not bad company to keep if you’re going to lose.

 

However, what I am most amazed by is the lack of interest in our local market in our products and/or services, when we seem to be smashing the lights in almost every metric that counts;

• Page impressions
• Unique visitors
• Concurrent visitors
• Session lengths / durations and repeat custom
• Network throughput
• Captive portal load times
• Redundancy and resiliency of the network
• Different on-boarding methods

 

Why is it that South African media and mobile companies haven’t woken up and exploited the network that is already there ? I am also convinced that local media/press only advertise companies or recognise innovation in success from people who advertise with them. Pathetic behaviour and so much for the “impartial tech press”.

Apple MacBook 12"

I have had a few Apple notebooks; I've tried using Dell and HP's during the same time period, but I always revert back to the Apple machines. Its more to do with UNIX than with the hardware.

• I started out with a 15" Apple MacBook Pro in 2006. This was a great machine; stable, beautiful and one click access to the CLI
• I then changed to a 11" MacBook Air in 2011. A bit small, and underpowered - a mistake
• A 13" MacBook Air later in 2011 was a good compromise, esp when paired with a 27" iMac. This was the beginning of my current computing paradigm, which is a current daily driver / travel machine paired with a slightly older (and MUCH bigger screen) desktop
• The 13" MacBook Air was replaced with a Retina 13" Pro and the iMac got upgraded in 2013

I frankly didn't see the need to change from my 2013 Retina 13" Pro, until I started traveling frequently last year. Carrying around the 13" Pro seemed too much, so I bought a 12" MacBook. 

It has massive pro's, and only two con's;

• Pro - the chiclet keyboard has been derided, but new Apple notebooks are coming with it so better get used to it
• Pro - the big touchpad is pretty awesome to use
• Pro - its light and small
• Pro - the retina display is beautiful
• Con - single USB-C port
• Con - performance is spotty and a smidgen too slow

While this has been derided as an iPad with a keyboard, its actually quite useful. But having a single USB-C port is simply damn stupid. So, I'm considering the new 13" Pro's with the touch bar.

Its a significant cash investment, and I'm considering waiting for the upgraded version of it, esp with Kaby Lake processors. Decisions :-(

Apple iPhone 7+

I've been using an Apple iOS device as my daily driver phone for quite a while now. Initially, I felt quite limited doing so because Apple seemed to be so far behind on the customization and flexibility, but the app developers make it compelling because initially they tend to release first on Apple, if not exclusively.

In my last related post, I had a iPhone 6+. Like a lemming, I upgraded to the 6S+. The touted difference was the ability to push harder or softer on the screen to achieve a myriad of different actions based on how hard you pushed; not features I really use frankly, and I didn't really notice much of a difference other than the thing now being a lot heavier.

Like a faithful lemming, I've upgraded to the 7+. It does have a bunch of differences (color, faster, etc), but the two key ones for me (and the reasons its worth getting frankly) are;

• Its waterproof - I'm not a surfer, but knowing that I can get the thing wet and not stress / lose data is a big deal
• The second camera being used to create portraits with good bokeh and/or being able to zoom in quite closely is very useful on a daily basis

If you're debating getting one, don't debate too long. Apple has clearly reached the point where massive steps in innovation are not present. But, the incremental ones are not bad if you skip generations (i.e. buy, skip the next one, buy, skip the next one, buy)

Google Pixel XL

I have always had a soft spot for Android phones. It caters to the inner geek in me, or if I have to be totally honest, the geek I used to be. Massively customizable, almost every aspect tweakable, and you can get to a command line prompt within a few seconds.

I always preferred Google's own interpretation of Android, through their Nexus line. The last Nexus device, the 6P made by Huawei, alongside the excellent 5X made by LG, were great devices.

But, their hardware was clearly from a 3rd party, and while Google had influence in the software, they only had heavy influence and not absolute control of what you held in your hands. With the Pixel range, Google clearly aims to change that. I am currently using an XL, which as it claims, is the bigger of two devices.

The hardware manufacturer is not highlighted, and this is first and foremost a Google device. What are the key differentiators from Nexus devices ? Frankly, little to nothing other than 24/7 support directly (ostensibly) from Google. No self-respecting Android user would go for Android support to anything other than xda forums. It is also the first phone to ship with the Google Assistant, which is theoretically a context-aware AI that is meant to be a personal assistant in your pocket.

My experience is that Google Assistant is good as a product for techies; I think its got a year or three before usage becomes even remotely mainstream. What is clear is that by adding it into a phone, and making it available in Google Home (which I have ordered and funnily enough is the first device that has my wife's attention i.e. she wants it), we should see the AI engine improving exponentially.

Its a good device; is it good enough to replace your Nexus ? No. Is it better than a Samsung ? Much harder question. I'd say the S7/S7 Edge only have the advantage due to waterproofing and SD card. But, because I don't store much on phones and am generally always well connected (and have lived without a water proof phone this long), its not a big swing for me. Getting software updates and releases first, is.

Amazon Fire TV stick

I've always struggled to find a decent media playing solution while on the move. I think I've cracked the problem, with an Amazon Fire TV stick.

By default, its locked to Amazon's Prime ecosystem of video and pictures. And this ecosystem is fairly decent and I consider it to be good value. But, because it runs Android underneath, and has access to Amazon's App store, you can quite easily and relatively simply dramatically increase its usefulness.

My suggestions on what to install and how to do this ?

1. Plex (from the Amazon App store) - access your home media library
2. AirPin (from the Amazon App store) - turn your device into a cheap AirPlay-compatible device
3. Sideload a bunch of apps - this is the frankly illegal stuff, so you can read up how to do it yourself
• Terrarium
• Put.io
• Popcorn Hour
• MX Player
• Kodi
• 1Channel
• Alluc
• Exodus
• Filmon.TV
• Gobble
• Navi-X
• Phoenix
• Stream all the sources

Once complete, Internet media streaming happiness ensues :-)

How to treat people who pay you

I like Google Apps; in principle and execution, it gets the basics right - well. But there are four simple questions I’d love a human being to answer, and good luck trying to get any human being at Google to read your mail.

 

<WARNING : RANT APPROACHING>

(HINT Googlers’ : the reason you suck in selling to Enterprise isn’t because your products are technically bad, its because you can’t get hold of a human being because you make it too damn difficult to do so in spite of the fact that I’m goddamn paying you more than a bunch of douchey teenagers creating burner GMail accounts. And when I do eventually get through your convoluted PIN-based process to speak to a human, the line quality is so bad because you’ve outsourced it to some BPO with shitty VoIP that I simply give up)

</WARNING : RANT APPROACHING>

 

Those four questions are;

1. Why don’t you offer a managed DNS service to Apps customers, in spite of the fact that you have Google DNS product which is only available via a python API ? Holy <insert favorite religious incantation here> guys, come on - you’re not going to appeal to any SME / SMB if you don’t offer DNS hosting easily
2. Why when I’m able to migrate my Google+ profile from my private GMail account to my Apps account, can I not also migrate my custom URL ? Because holy salty balls (to misquote South Park), you can’t have your desired custom URL because hey, guess what, your old profile has it. Also, thanks for making it REAL easy to migrate, and thanks SO much for making the instructions so easy and intuitive. Here’s the goddamn link, because its not easy to find.
3. Why when you’re adding such cool and usable features to Google+ like Stories do you exclude paying Apps customers from sharing the content from their Drive folders ? Great way to ramp up adoption to the Apps-based environment if the free one has more features. Wait a minute, have you become brain dead and hired some Microsoft or Oracle people because you think they understand the Enterprise business ? Thats like getting the Catholic Church (Congrats to the new Pope BTW; he seems seriously awesome) to branch out into day care centers. Microsoft and Oracle people are the only people on this earth who would be able to charge you for an inferior product when the free one has more features and is, oh wait for it, free ?
4. You launch cool products and services that, wait for it, aren’t usable by your paying customers. What a great way to garner support.

My journey to the public cloud

In spite of having architected, built and managed some of the largest public cloud infrastructures in Africa, I have until very recently run a private cloud exposed to the Internet for my personal needs.

 

I have two FreeBSD-based servers (one in South Africa, one in Germany), which for at least 10 years ran a very consistent configuration;

• Cyrus IMAP server with Cyrus SASL authentication (plaintext)
• Postfix SMTP server (with the accruement of SpamAssasin, clamav, grey listing, SPF and DKIM to combat malware, viruses and spam)
• Bind DNS server
• Apache web server
• Menalto Gallery for photo galleries

 

I kept my personal data in Dropbox since its inception, and about 18 months ago moved to Google Drive because of the more compelling pricing model, the pay-per-month option and the ability to search my data. I use a combination of Crashplan to keep a redundant copy in the cloud, and BitTorrent Sync to keep local files available (certain hosts are primary of certain data sets). LogMeIn Pro does a good job of allowing me to remotely manage several computer hosts. I kept my phone contacts in the corporate Exchange cluster, because in spite of all the terrible software they write, Microsoft has done a damn good job of licensing ActiveSync and making it fail-proof,  idiot proof and the de facto standard on every mobile platform out there.

 

This configuration served my data and personal needs, several vanity domains and similar for several friends and family members for over a decade. The only aspect that changed was upgrades for security purposes and a move from US-based hosting to Germany-based hosting (for cost and privacy reasons).

 

These servers acted as primary and secondary name servers, primary and backup MX and geo-distributed you to the closest web server for my family photo collection. And until about 6 months ago, I played down the progress in public cloud offerings and was confident in my own abilities as an ex-sysadmin.

 

Then Heartbleed hit. And then my FreeBSD version was EOL’d. And I had hardware failures, which caused me to stay awake at night, away from my family and friends and ruined an otherwise decent overseas trip. And while the lure of 18 degrees in a data centre used to thrill me, it no longer does. As does the reputation-damaging spectre of being hacked.

 

I decided to change all of this.

 

Over a 3 week period, while I’ve kept the Crashplan / Google Drive / BitTorrent Sync configuration to keep my “personal” computing requirements sane, I’ve migrated this configuration to;

• Google Apps for hosted mailboxes
• Afrihost bronze e-mail hosting for those domains that simply forward mail
• DNS Made Easy for DNS hosting
• Open Provider for DNS registrar services
• Zenfolio for photo gallery hosting

 

Along the way, I tried a mail migration tool called Car.bo (from Shuttlecloud), that did a great job on small mailboxes, but failed miserably on large ones (2-10 GB). And, they sneakily move you from a direct billing relationship with Google to a reseller model where they bill you and get commission from your business - not cool. I ended up using a mail migration tool called Yippiemove, that while expensive, certainly did end up moving users’ data.

 

I now have my phone contacts in Google Contacts, and am using a tool called Scrubly to clean it up, populating LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter data into the contact stream and profile photos. iOS and Android devices use Google Sync (which is licensed ActiveSync) to replicate contact data, Google Drive is my data repo and I’ll be able to shut down my servers from active use by the end of the month.

 

In this scenario, on-boarding a new compute platform, tablet, phone or similar is a 2 minute exercise - and I have access to all my data.

 

Yes, this is costing me some money - but nowhere near the hosting costs I would have incurred if I wasn’t working for an ISP. You’re looking at $5 per user month for Google Apps, $30 annually for hosting 10 DNS zones, $60 annually for Zenfolio, $30 annually for the contact cleanup utility and I’m springing an additional $10 per month for 1Tb of storage. Crashplan is about $6 per month for unlimited storage and backup of 10 computers.

 

Ultimately, the headache of keeping these systems in sync / up to date and secure is now not my problem. For me, that’s money well spent.

 

PS. The biggest headache was merging my and my users’ Google accounts (Plus, Voice, Drive, Chrome Sync, etc) from being unmanaged consumer-level Google accounts to managed Google Apps accounts. This migration is still too damn hard.

Transporter Sync, Crashplan and BitTorrent Sync

My father told be about Transporter, a product made by an ex-Drobo staffer that created your own private cloud for file storage. I was excited about a new addition to their portfolio, the Transporter Sync. In essence, data stored on one device would be replicated, without intervention, to the other device.

 

The Sync allowed you to provide your own storage; I thought I’d be clever and install my own storage into it, and have it replicated across the Internet. This is a problem I face to keep my home video editing, photo and music library safe and secure. 

 

Problem 1; the Sync forces you to format the storage to its own format. Not a huge problem, but still a pain.

Problem 2; the Sync used to force you to have local copies on both sides. You had to replicate the content, you couldn’t use it as a remote access device. This feature has been added in a new software release  

 

I however returned my units. Why ? On the same LAN, plugged into literally the same switch, the devices couldn’t see each other. Major, major problem. The company was kind enough to refund my money, but couldn’t figure out why the devices wouldn’t see each other. Also, because of the badly designed software, I managed (accidentally) to delete all my content without warning. Major fail :-(

 

I thankfully have a Crashplan account, and once I saw how long it would take to restore 1TB of data over the Internet, used their Restore to door service. In short, they courier you a drive, you restore, you send the drive back. Takes a while, but better than downloading it all online.

 

I was annoyed until I, by accident, discovered BitTorrent Sync. It did not require a dedicated device, but was software installed on your computer (multi-platform) which would replicate ala Veritas File System that system admin’s would be familiar with. There is a nifty on-boarding of mobile devices (using QR codes), and the solution was up and running within minutes. Highly recommended, especially because of the price - free!

I get it, but I don't like it

Sitting in Santa Clara, living the iTunes Match dream, I get it. Streaming media, all devices can see all content, lets live in the "Cloud", etc, etc. I get it. But what Apple and Google seem to forget, ironically, is that most of the world isn't hyper-connected. Networks do go offline, and mobile networks aren't as reliable or as cheap as you would think everywhere in the world.

 

I say this is ironic, because while I'm sitting behind a pretty decent connection (50Mbps cable) here in the US, most of the engineers who built these products come from countries with the same, or worse, data connectivity problems that we have in South Africa, or with prohibitive costs.

 

There must be a harder, but more elegant, solution to this problem. Solving the worlds connectivity problems is going to take decades, and in spite of the great effort of initiatives like the Alliance for Affordable Internet, often times telco gear is literally ripped from the ground faster than its laid.

 

Stop pretending connectivity is ubiquitous and cheap, smart Silicon Valley people. Try harder!

Network locked phones

I and much of the IT industry in South Africa don't give ICASA much credit; there are plenty of complaints about them. But I can admire one thing they did; in 2001, phones that were sold were to be network unlocked.

 

What a big difference that made. We in South Africa take this for granted, but here in the USA, which you would expect to be a liberal and open market, phones by default are network locked. You have to generally pay more (to be expected), and wait longer (which you wouldn't expect), to get an unlocked phone. This is an incredibly frustrating process, which is usually made harder by the network operators themselves throwing up all kinds of false and artificial barriers. How long you have used the phone on the network, the type of service you have, etc, etc. See this article for an example by T-Mobile.

 

For once, our regulator did the right thing early.

 

Update: looks like the Obama administration agrees, according to this article.

Porting to Cell-C

I have been a Vodacom direct customer since 1995 (except for a brief stint of stupidity with Nashua Mobile, who make Vodacom SP look like angels). I have always had a Talk 500 contract or superior. Like a religious nut, I'd upgraded every two years, allowing a new handset to buy my loyalty and put up with ever increasing bad signal quality, network outages, rubbish data throughputs and perpetual price increases and value deflation for 12 years. This, combined with dropped calls at three distinct points on Cowie Road in Bryanston that hasn't been fixed in the 10 years I've complained about it has resulted in no loyalty from me.

 

I used to pay R899 for this privilege a month, without a handset, with no data and 100 SMS'. I have now ported to Cell-C, which was a painless / smooth experience. I am now paying effectively R500 for the same voice bundle, and receive 300 extra SMS' and 400MB of data included. In my books, thats about half the price. I plan to take the savings and use it to build a contract that suits me, whereby I'll get a new phone every year now. So, for the same money, I'm getting a phone every year as opposed to two, 400MB of data and 300 additional SMS'.

 

I've used the network now for 10 days continuously, as my primary voice and data provider. The service has been, from a voice perspective, superior to Vodacom. The data service has been great in almost all locations except underground parking locations. And because of VitalityMobile, my wife has cancelled her contract with Vodacom as well, and we'll be phoning each other for a fixed fee per month.

 

Goodbye Vodacom; hello Cell-C!

How does Vodacom expect to stay in business ?

I have had a good historical reason to stay with Vodacom. I've always liked their services, and frankly, they've been as rubbish as their competition. But recently, the number and scale of outages, and complete and utter ineptitude at managing their network has resulted in me being rather disappointed with them. If it wasn't for the crazy early cancellation fees, I would have ported over to someone else at least 6 months ago.

 

But I digress; lets focus on the last 3 weeks of ineptitude. I returned from an overseas trip with an iPhone 4S. I wanted to enable Visual Voicemail for it, and miracle of miracles, Vodacom has it. For the purposes of clarity, please see this article on their website. I tried to enable it on the 12th of November. Through an endless series of calls, first explaining what the service was, then that they did in fact have it, and that it wasn't activating, it finally started working  - on the 20th, with no explanation or understanding from the myriad operators I was speaking to as to what had changed. No-one knew why it wasn't working, and no-one knew why it started working. Major problem!

 

Then, I foolishly decided to add Voicemail Plus, which gives me the ability (theoretically) to forward my voicemail to an e-mail address; having both would have been voice messaging nirvana! I activated it (on the 21st), was immediately charged for it and received a summary notification saying my Visual Voicemail service was cancelled. No excuse, no explanation. So, for clarification, it appears you can't have both services together, even though none of the documentation (nor, for that matter, the operators) seem to know that.

And they're an innovative company! I decided the ability to get my voicemail as an e-mail was worth more than not having to sit through tons of tedious IVR messaging, and started looking for a place to enter my e-mail address. Lo and behold, hours on the web site, several calls to the help desk and two call references later, I still don't have my voicemail forwarded.

 

So, to summarise;

1. It took 8 days to enable Visual Voicemail, a service that Vodacom advertises it has
2. You can't have multiple value-added voicemail services at the same time (something I only learned when I activated another one) - there is nothing in the documentation or collateral that states otherwise
3. I have been four days (and counting) without the ability to forward my voicemail to my e-mail, in spite of having being billed and have, as active, the service on my profile

How do cellular operators expect to survive when they offer up such shit service ? Can't get the basics right (keep the network up and don't drop my calls), can't get the value added services right, and can't support the end-user when things break ? I'm a "premium" customer to them, paying over R1000 a month. Not for long; not for long.

 

Update: as of yesterday, December 30th, I now have the service working. No apology, no explanation and (still) no ability to configure it on the web. It has to be configured "on the back end".

Apple, you ruddy wankers.

Apple released iTunes Match, a cloud-based system whereby a copy of your music is stored online, and is retrievable (and critically, streamable!) from any authenticated device. But, you need an American credit card to make it work. Major suckage :-(

 

PS. Now that I'm in the ranting mood, isn't it weird how Google and Samsung postpone a device launch event out of respect for the death of Steve Jobs, but Apple themselves choose to launch new software and hardware for the same date. Talk about poor taste.

Android Market now available in SA!

One of my longest standing gripes with Google is the lack of availability in South Africa of paid market-apps! An announcement was made that clarifies that; the full Android market is coming to SA.

 

Brilliant news, and about bloody time!

Assertion: Most iOS apps exist to work around shit browsing

So I've got an iPod touch. And had an iPhone 1G (which sucked), a 3G (which sucked), a 3GS (which sucked a little bit less) and a 4 (which sucked the most because of the rubbish signal and battery life).

 

I also borrowed and used an iPad for about a month, as a laptop replacement. I therefore feel adequately exposed to comment on them. What I learned from all these devices that in spite of the gazillion apps that are in the Apple Store, most of them are simply to work around and/or circumvent the frankly shit browsing experience and/or lack of Adobe Flash that exists on these devices, and none of them multi-task properly.

 

I regularly see my colleagues and family showing me apps that frankly only exist to work around functionality that should exist with a proper ecosystem. And the app update process is simply a nightmare, if you mix/match store accounts.

 

Is it just me, or is that simply disingenuous ?

Working remotely and how I bought a 27" iMac

I don't travel much. To be honest, the largest amount of traveling I do is to the shopping centre over the weekend. My daily work commute is less than 5 minutes (and a similar number of kilometers).

 

So why do I need a laptop ? Well, I do a fair amount of work from home. This work is not particularly system intensive; it primarily comprises reading e-mail, browsing, some RSS feeds and Skype. The heavy lifting is generally done at work. I've been waiting for Core i7-based quad-coreMacbook's for at least a year, and so have a few other people. Bottom line, I don't forsee it for at least another 6 months to a year, if then.

 

Meanwhile, the quad-core iMac has been around for a while, is well priced, and gotten good reviews. The 27" also has the added ability to be used as an external monitor, which is useful once the machine outlives its useful life.

 

So I ordered a custom version; 2.93GHz quad-core i7, with 8GB of RAM. It arrived last week, and I can only say, "Wowzers!". The thing is blazingly fast, and consumes everything I'm throwing at it with ease. I migrated all my data across, and am using it full-time for a week now. All I can say is wow, wow, wow!

 

So, initial thoughts;

• For what you get, its a great price
• The unexpected Bluetooth keyboard, mouse and trackpad (which I wasn't expecting) is cool - what is mind-boggling is that they were already paired with the machine before unpacking them
• 27" is quite large; obscenely large, actually (maybe a bit too big)
• Its a pity there is no eSATA support, or ability to expand using ExpressCard support

 

For what I need it to do, its great.

 

PS. I've ordered a 11" Macbook Air as a companion device to use remotely; its fast enough for what I need (I've played around with a few), the screen is large enough and when used with Dropbox to sync my data, will be flawless. Also, all the stupidity of the previous generation seems to have been sorted out.

 

I'll survive by using the iPad I'm borrowing in the interim. It sucks.

 

My Air is only arriving in January 2011 (thanks Apple) for putting Africa at the bottom of your priority list. A post for that when it arrives, for sure!

iPad (and iDorks / iTards)

So the Apple iPad generated a huge amount of interest and attention. I've managed to play with one for about 3 weeks now, sufficient time to talk about it authoritatively.

 

Likes;

1. Its fast and highly responsive
2. The screen size is right - a 7" would be too small
3. Gestures are a more intuitive method to browse / peruse information
4. The battery life is brilliant - almost a full week, with an hour or three use per day

 

Dislikes;

1. its fundamentally unusable when not connected to the Internet
2. Most apps are still not multi-tasking / threaded compatible
3. It has no camera for video conferencing
4. The video out is controlled on an app-level
5. There is no USB interface to get content onto it
6. You're in this diminishingly exclusive club of posers

 

Summary;

if you wanting to use it a a computer replacement, it isn't. If you're using it a tool to augment content consumption, its ideal. Overall, is it worth R7000 ? Nope.

Using an HTC Desire

After mucking around with CM6, I decided to spend some more time with HTC Sense UI.

I like it; it feels polished, gets useful stuff done without getting in the way, and appears to be more stable than CM6. I've been plagued with random reboots while the device is locked and I'm sleeping, and this isn't great for me.

So, I pulled out a HTC Desire, switched on, and ran through the OTA upgrade, only to discover that it cannot be rooted. So, I had to follow this route to downgrade, and then used the unrevoked method to install a custom recovery, Clockworkmod. I then applied a pre-rooted image, from XDA-Developers. This is a good, stable combination which I'd highly recommend!

PS. unrevoked have released a version that can downgrade from the 2.2 upgrade. Much easier.

PPS. The compelling things for me in the HTC mods are

• Corporate directory integration
• A much better dialler with T9 lookups
• Some pretty, useful and pretty useful widgets
• A better launcher