Iphone4wars

Well, it's been a very ling time since i used this blog; it is reserved for rants about iphones, after all! BUT with the big three - O2, the current champion, Orange, the contender and Vodafone, the plucky youngster - now in the ring, we can truly see which network is best for iphone4.

Assumptions made:
I rarely ever use my allowance for texts or talk.
I am a moderate to heavy data user, and perceive my current iphone 3G usage as a web device more than phone.
I want to pay the minimum monthly fee, including purchase costs.
Steve Jobs announces new product in June, so 18 month contracts need "bridging" strategies: just letting it run incurs a higher monthly cost than equivalent 24 month contracts; SIM-only contracts are either monthly (£++) or yearly (6m too much), but much cheaper than 18/24m charges; 18m under contract plus 6*1m Sim-only gives the best comparison to 24m contracts; sadly, no supplier gives a discount for "loyalty" (O2 for example think they're doing existing customers a favour letting them buy iphone4s at all!), so there is nothing beneficial in being under contract and upgrading.

Method for analysis: purchase price plus cost for 24 months - either by straight 2 year contracts or cheapest available 18m plus sim-only 6m top up. Comparison is focussed on total costs for 2 years. NOTE: if you use more than 75-100mins of talk or 250+ texts there may be small increases, but at least these will be costs you've legitimately used, rather than potential usage that isn't used and doesn't roll over! If you use more than 500MB (O2), 750MB (Orange "fair use" so cost unclear) or 1GB (Vodafone) you will incur additional charges. Therefore, the following results may vary for you. If you want the full spreadsheet - I limited analysis to contracts under £1200 total (~£50/m) as anyone willing to pay more than this either doesn't need to save or is mad! - then leave a comment here.

Ok, here goes…
Most expensive for both 16GB and 32GB best price was…
Orange: £889 (16GB [£169 purchase price] £30/m 24m), £989 (32GB [£269] £30/m 24m)
These included 150 mins talk 250 texts and 750MB data a month.

Second most expensive for best price deals, controversially given the unusual purchase pricing for 18/24m contracts is…
O2: £869 (16GB [£209] £30/m 18m+6m@£20 sim-only [£929 if you don't switch!]), £923 (32GB [£323] £25/m 24m)

This gets you 100mins talk unlimited texts but ONLY 500MB data a month.

Finally, the cheapest <drum roll please> over 2 years, ready for that quick network change for 2012's best deal on the iphone5G, which will make toast for you, burned with an Apple Logo and massage away your fevered headache…
Vodafone: £819 (16GB [£219] £25/m 24m), £909 (32GB [£309] £25/m 24m)

This is much cheaper! And provides only 75mins talk, 250 texts but a whopping 1GB data a month. This is pretty good and for me the savings easily make up for low minutes and text allowances. If you push to £30/m for either phone (£70 more for 16GB, £80 for 32GB over 2 years) you get 300mins and unlimited texts and still be cheaper than other networks for similar allowances! NOTE: The sneaky (apparently) cheaper phone purchase prices, which are inverted to total costs; Orange appears cheapest for both models; O2 is strangely the most expensive for the 32GB on its best total cost deal, but the 16GB is second highest purchase price for second most expensive best deal; you pay more up front for Vodafone for the 16GB and not quite the most for the 32GB, but the total cost means penny-wise but pound foolish if you buy from the others!

For me in the South Wales valleys, where mobile phone signals don't run up hills, an important issue is network coverage. Signal in my valley, Cwmaman, where the Stereophonics come from (several are my neighbours!), is fairly patchy for all networks equally, but Vodafone Sure Signal (£50 one off fee) uses your broadband (sadly rather crap in rural Wales, barely faster than dial up, and especially bad recently as Richard Jones of the aforementioned band moved in and seems to have hogged our local bandwidth!) to boost indoor signal. So, basically, the big V has won!

Reasons for shifting from O2: arrogance over data capping no loyalty bonus for upgrading customers; bizarre pricing that is IMHO intended to deliberately confuse and cost more. Sorry O2. I will say this in your defence, you are the only network to make clear that Visual Voicemail is free. Make customers a decent offer and we could reconsider. Expect a PAC request at the end of this blog post!

Reasons NOT to move to Orange: Apart from brig the mist expensive, the odd free cinema ticket dissent really cut it. Only people desperate to stay with Orange will get an iPhone from you.

Please Note: T-Mobile have yet to announce pricing. So, it all may change… However, I wouldn't hold your breath. Sorry T-M, I think you've missed the boat!

@DoctorMikeReddy on Twitter.
Written entirely on an O2 iPhone 3G with intermittent data and regular loss of signal on the train up from Newport to Newcastle.

The offending text

Slideshow for the 09 presentation now available from:
wwwDOTslideshareDOTnetSLASHDoctorMikeReddySLASHcowman09v3

Audio, which is not the best quality:
staffDOTnewportDOTacDOTukSLASHmreddy01SLASHaudioSLASHMR-games-edu09DOTmp3

--

Dr. Mike Reddy, Future Technology, Games Development and A.I., Division of Computing, Newport Business School, University of Wales, Newport, Allt-yr-yn Campus, PO Box 180 Newport South Wales NP20 5XR

Tel: +44 (0) 1633 432452 Fax: +44 (0)1633 432307 Mob: +44 (0)7971 170 199 Email: mike.reddy @ newport.ac.uk (remove spaces)

After delete

Before delete

IS 3.0 beta 2

I've been fairly quiet since 2.2.1 as it was pretty stable. However,
I've signed up as an iPhone dev now - dreaming of millions of micro
transactions making me rich, or more likely millions of support
requests - and have been playing with OS 3 beta. It's rude to kick
someone when they're down, and it was a beta, but now we are on to
beta 2 - jailbroke within a day I note - I feel able to comment on the
first one.

Some major freeze ups and app drop outs aside, my main concern has
been dealing with cut and paste and a wish for more user control of
screen orientation. The latter first: I often use my iPhone in bed,
where portrait use is hindered by being on my side. It would be lovely
to have a screen lock that would force portrait mode. You may have
noticed in 2.2.1 (or maybe even earlier) that landscape is sticky if
you rotate the phone upsidedown; I.e. Home button uppermost. This is
really useful for forcing landscape but more uncomfortable to hold
single handedly, as well as harder to scroll fast. So, come on Apple
give us more control like I have on my Tablet PC. I can imagine press
hold home button to pull up a dialogue box.

Ok, gripes with text select and cut and paste. Firstly, beta 2 breaks
paste when you cut rather than copy text. Beta 1 when you cut then
repositioned cursor (magnifying glass then release) gave you paste
option. Now this only appears if you have copied, which would mean
having to reproduce then delete text If all you wanted to do was move
it! Secondly, the copy select handles in landscape mode has far too
fast a scroll. A down arrow appears that zooms you too quickly when
all you might have wanted was to select down a line. This needs
Nerfing, but the portrait mode which has more text lines visible seems
better. Finally, I'd love it if the context popup menu appeared after
holding for a time rather than always when you release, which would
allow you to slide onto your menu choice without lifting the finger up
to then select. Select also seems a redundant option: the word double
clicked or held over should be highlighted by default, allowing select
all, cut and copy to be up straight off.

Ok, now let's consider text entry in Safari. Imagine you are posting a
comment using a form page. Positioning the cursor to edit is virtually
impossible as the cut paste police think you MUST be wanting to select
the whole paragraph for copying: workaround is to click done the name
a best guess blind as to where to put the cursor then make your
corrections. This was a beta 1 problem, but given the above my guess
is that it will be for 2 as well
More beta grumbles to come soon, but in the meantime here's some
music...

--
Mike is away from the office, but still in touch thanks to his lovely
iPhone

iTunes and Safari bugs

Ok, been a while. Been using the iPhone for podcasts about as heavily
as I used to listen to my iPod Video. I regularly have about 4-6GB of
podcasts and it is pretty important to use iTunes effectively with
hundreds of entries to prioritise listening, archive the real keepers
and delete the heard casts. However, I have noticed recently that the
iPhone is not remembering that I have listened to a cast or marks it
as incomplete. While it is great now that you can rate podcasts with
the star system, not being able to rely on last played, which is my
method for identifying casts to delete, is really frustrating as it
has resulted in me getting far too many deja vu moments.

As for Safari, it keeps crashing. It would be great to have flash
support - amazing how many sites use it - and the simple ability to
remember where you were scrolled to when flicking between pages would
be lovely. Not to mention the option to open in new window I have
asked for before.

Scent from my iPhone 8-P

scentfrommyiphone.blogspot.com

For those sick to the iTeeth with Bad iDesign. Brought to you by the
letter "i" and the number Pi.

Unexpected iPod shortcut

Hey, double press the home button when the iphone is asleep. Guess
what? A mini iPod menu appears as well as the usual turn me on slider.
This allows you to pause/play the current track or podcast as well as
jump to next or previous. A similar mini menu appears when double
clicking home in certain apps, even when the settings option is set to
phone favourites (the default).

Scent from my iPhone 8-P

scentfrommyiphone.blogspot.com

For those sick to the iTeeth with Bad iDesign. Brought to you by the
letter "i" and the number Pi.