Ocasta

It's been a ridiculously long time since I wrote a blog entry. So long in fact that there's probably no one subscribed to the news feed. So what's woken me from my slumbers? I finally cracked and bought an iPhone

I'd avoid the first version because I told myself it wasn't 3G. When the 3G version came out the contract on my trusty E61 had long passed its sell by so I really had no excuse.

Overall I like it. Perfect? Not by a long way.

The best handheld computing device available right now. For me, yes.

The best mobile phone? That category doesn't exist. The world is far more complex than that.

After about a week I realised that what I was using was a 21st century Palm. It's icon drive, single tasking (for all intents and purposes) and has a touch screen. I loved my Palm V & Sony Clié but lack of phone and the insistence on sticking with a stick out arial for the one with a phone meant it languished in the cupboard long ago. By the time a decent phone/palm came out I was working with Symbian devices so tried those. You know, I really wish the iPhone had the extra programmable hard keys along the bottom. Give me a touchscreen keyboard over graffiti anytime. It would be nice if companies like Textware Solutions could replace the standard key layout with their own though.

Ignore much of the negative stuff out being bandied around the webosphere. Compared to any Series 60 phone I've ever had the iPhone just works. Switching between 3G and wifi works like it should. The screen quality and size instantly blows you away. Only a 2MP camera? Just how big a photo are you going to email or web upload over a 3G link?

Would I like a bigger camera, more memory, better battery life? Of course. But I also want simple sync with iTunes, easy app install, a great email client and oh, that screen.

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Opera have produced an amazing application (Opera Mini 4 beta) that delivers a browsing experience similar to browsing with the Nokia Webkit based browser. Full page rendering with a thumbnail overview. A technological marvel.

But is this really the best way to help phone users navigate around pages larger than the screen? On my Nokia E61 the thumbnail looks relatively clear. On a Motorola L7 I can just about identify the screen areas (Left menu, middle content etc), but if I visit an unfamiliar Website the thumbnail doesn't help me find the information I'm looking for at all. As for vertically and horizontally scrolling the L7's tiny viewpoint around a large web page on the L7; the horror, the horror.

So what happens when I turn it off. I'm left with a smartly rendered page with no assistance to help me navigate around. Is this better than using the built in browser and a content adaptation service such as the one launched by Vodafone recently? As I say its rendered very well, it scrolls faster than built in browser (at least on a phone like the L7) and it probably uses less data traffic; but I don't think this is enough to crack the mass market. I'm sure the mobile geek community will rave over it, but I think that the big breakthrough in presenting normal Web pages on restricted phones is still to come. Maybe Opera Mini v5.

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Nokia released a new firmware version for the E61 yesterday. Upgrading the firmware is a simple process involving my almost retired PC and a the Nokia Software Update program. Well ir should be a simple process but the NSU insists that there are is no new software version for my 3 branded E61. A useful article explains how to get round this. I'd previously tried this but with no success. This time things went better. I tried changing my product code to a generic UK code (0538289). This was better than the installed code and installed v2.618.06.05. That was a step forward but I wanted more. I then tried the one listed in the above article - 0524755. This worked fine and the new version installed successfully.

The upgrade process unfortunately lost the default 3 theme. A well design theme that worked well. I'll have to try some others again. The other unfortunate side affect was that the ? have / swapped over. Annoying, but I can live with it. The upgrade has fixed some of the problems I'd noticed before.

• The Services Browser works with the 3 today page. The Internet page of this usually (but not always) displays with lots of broken image links.
• The Gmail contacts screen is no longer keypad only.

Further details can be found at E-Series

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