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I’ve always kept my iPhone pretty much up to date with Apple software. After all, upgrades are free, and they often deliver exciting new stuff. Over the two years I’ve had my iPhone 3G, it has got more and more capable due to improving software.

Then Apple pushed iPhone OS 4 – or iOS4, as it’s now called – and the trouble began. Programs on my phone kept crashing, the sound kept getting interrupted and it became glacially slow. My phone went from being a thing of beauty and a joy to use to being a clunky machine to be endured and cursed. Using Wellington’s helpful text-to-park feature became nearly impossible because the parking machine would time out in the time it took me to send it a text message. And, in what was the last straw, it started ignoring incoming calls and going straight to voicemail.

This is the story of how I fixed all that by going back to iPhone OS 3.
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Today on Radio New Zealand National I’ll be talking primarily about the recent failures of Telecom’s XT mobile network. I’ll be trying to uncover just what a radio network controller is, and how Telecom managed to ballyhoo a network which then kept failing.

After that, if there’s any time, we’ll have a brief look at a new theory of physics that may integrate gravity and quantum theory. Gosh. And, of course, steam cars.

I’ll be on air after the 11am news. If you don;t want to listen live, shortly after the programme, you’ll be able to get it as a podcast or just download the audio as ogg or mp3.

I talked about Apple’s latest launch, the state of Telecom’s XT network, Google being hacked in China and ACTA. I didn’t get time for Lieutenant Uhura, but she’s here.

No speaker notes for today – most of it was done off the cuff after the Apple launch. But if you missed it live, you can download the audio as ogg or mp3.

This is a Lockheed SR71 “Blackbird”, displayed on public view at the air museum in Duxford, England. The Blackbird was a high-altitude supersonic spyplane used in the later part of the cold war. The Americans started using the Blackbird after Gary Powers was shot down over the USSR in his U2 – the SR71 flew higher and faster – but pensioned it off after it became clear that advances in missile technology meant it was at risk of shooting down from the installations it was sent to observe. Now, of course, we all use satellite technology thanks to Google Earth. As a kind of postscript, the U2 is still flying over Iraq and other hot spots, long after the aircraft designed to replace it has gone to the museums.

The Blackbird flew at over Mach 3, at heights of over 75,000 ft. It took off and landed – of course – at sea level, so its engines and airframe needed to be able to deal with low speeds as well as its cruising altitude. The engines would only burn subsonic air, so the inlets of the engines had to be complex and vary in shape to slow the air enough when the plane was going fast. That’s the purpose of the cones pointing forward out of the engines – the cones moved in and out depending on the aircraft speed. Even so, the SR71 would sometimes suffers what the US military quaintly called an “unstart” while at cruising speed and altitude. Both engines would go out, meaning that the aircraft would have to descend and decelerate while trying to restart the engines nearer sea level. That’s not something you would want to have to do over enemy territory!

Even so, not a single Blackbird was lost to enemy action. But 12 out of the 32 that were made crashed in accidents. It’s not technology that you’d want to use in airliners.

But I still think it’s a wonderful, if strange, looking aircraft.

As I said on the radio last week, I recently changed my iPhone from Vodafone service to Telecom’s XT network.

I did it primarily because Vodafone’s coverage at my house in Wellington was so poor. Every time the mobile rang I would have to run upstairs with it and get out onto the deck to hear the caller. Vodafone say they are going to do some more “infill” of their urban Wellington coverage next year; I can’t wait that long.
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OK, so I went to the Telecom XT launch in Auckland today. I’ll blog about what went on tomorrow. But for now: Telecom are very proud of the technical quality of their network. Test-drive it for a month, they said. And they showed us some upcoming TV ads of people doing just that. Then they lent me a phone and a SIM to try it out with.

I’m keen to give this thing a blast. I’d love suggestions on what to try. Anything goes provided it doesn’t damage the phone (or me!), and I can do it in and around Wellington. The phone is a Nokia 6120. I’ll post results on the site.

Suggestions, please?

Today on Radio New Zealand National I’ll talk about a whole list of things – not sure if I’ll get time for them all. I’m going to mention the rumours that IBM will buy Sun, talk about why you can’t use your mobile on the London Underground, how you can tell if your computer is infected, and about where the value lies in software, which is based on a blog post I made a few days ago. I’ll put some of my speaker notes and the links for the program behind the “more…” below.

Listen live at 11:05 or download the audio as ogg or mp3. (more…)

I’m away from New Zealand for a few weeks, visiting my extended family. Here in this sceptred isle the weather is cold and I’m already missing Wellington. But the company here is great, and I’m actually looking forward to Christmas.

I’m doing some interesting things to stay connected while I’m travelling. There’s no way you want to pay our outrageous data roaming charges, so the iPhone “Data Roaming” option is firmly off. But there are things you can do. The house I’m staying in at the moment, for instance, has wireless broadband but it’s all locked down by my host’s employer. So, I’ve bought a little wireless access point with me – also locked down hard – and connected it directly to his router. That means that the four different wi-fi enabled gadgets I’m carrying can all get online. I bought one of these when I arrived but I haven’t needed it yet.

As to those who might say that I should just leave everything behind and ignore the Net for while – maybe I should. But, then, who would pay my bills while I’m away or keep my business running? And how would I have managed the Skype teleconference I needed to have on my arrival?

For years Apple’s Mac OS X has been making slow inroads into Windows’ installed user base. But it’s slow progress. Windows is still massively dominant on the desktop.

That’s the context for today’s story about Apple’s venture into smartphones, the much-hyped iPhone. The sales of iPhones exceed the sales of every type of Windows Mobile smart phone put together.

The article linked above speculates as to why this might be. It suggest two reasons, both of which come down to developer preference: one is that Windows Mobile runs on a wide variety of hardware and that makes life hard for developers; and the other is that the iPhone is just sooo cool. That’s right, it’s the third party applications developers who are driving the adoption of the iPhone and deserting Windows mobile.

This is significant because we are seeing Microsoft being taken on and beaten handsomely – not just little chips away at a huge installed user base. It must be an unfamiliar feeling for them.

Today on Radio New Zealand National I have a light hearted look at things to buy for Christmas for your friends of a geekier persuasion, or, let’s face it, things to just go out and buy for yourself! Read on for my notes or download the audio as ogg or mp3. (more…)