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Google Wave cometh

By Maggie Holland in Editorial

Posted in Internet on September 30, 2009 at 11:18 pm

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It’s finally here. Well, for the chosen few anyway.

So what’s all the fuss about Google Wave? We’ll be bringing you our considered thoughts about its merits for businesses as soon as we can, but in the meantime the video below tries to explain what Google Wave is and why you should care.

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Why don’t mobile’s work when you need them to?

By Maggie Holland in Editorial

Posted in Entertainment, Mobile on September 24, 2009 at 7:00 pm

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We’ve all been there. Desperately needing to make or receive and important call, but staring straight at the little bars of sorrow that is the signal levels of your mobile phone.

It happens more often than I’d like it to on my iPhone, but I’ve managed to work around the issue by carrying around a PAYGO Orange phone too. Drastic measures, some may say, but it seems to be working for me. Unlike the poor souls in the video below who could well do with a second blower as back-up.

*Warning, this clip does contain some swearing…

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Motorola’s first Android handset heads to Orange

By Maggie Holland in Editorial

Posted in Mobile on September 16, 2009 at 3:17 pm

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Yesterday saw the official unveiling of Motorola’s first stab at an Android-powered handset, the Motorola DEXT. The mobile also plays home to the debut of MOTOBLUR, the company’s software that sits on top of Android and lets you manage your social networking and communications feeds in one place.

We already knew Motorola had an Android handset planned, that wasn’t really news. Although we were surprised to find lots of Orange logos around the building when we headed over for the launch last night. Yes, that’s right, Orange (or T’Orange or O-Mobile as it may or may not be known in the future) has nabbed the DEXT as an exclusive.

Although everyone was either very tight lipped or just not in the know as to how long this exclusivity will last once the handset hits the shops next month.

Check back on the site later today for our first look review of the Motorola DEXT. In the meantime, the video below shows the DEXT in action.

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TomTom iPhone app review: first impressions

By Maggie Holland in Editorial

Posted in Sat Nav, iPhone on September 9, 2009 at 11:12 pm

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TomTom’s arrival on the iPhone was talked about back at Apple’s WWDC a few months ago, but it wasn’t until the middle of last month that it actually turned from talk to action.

The sat nav application, which is available in both UK and international versions, is available to download from iTunes with a starting price tag of around £60 (for the UK version), which isn’t bad when you consider how much you’ll have to shell out for ‘proper’ unit. Talking of sat nav kit, TomTom plans to release a car kit soon, which will make it easier for drivers to make use of the shiny new app. We tested it in the passenger’s seat (would have been a bit dangerous otherwise) and in pedestrian mode, but we’re looking forward to testing it out in more depth once the car kit is in our clutches. Which, according to TomTom, should be around October time.

If you’ve ever got lost on your way to a business meeting and turned up several hours late, looking like a drowned rat because it was raining and you were wandering the streets clutching a soggy map printed from the internet the day before, you’ll like this app a lot. Although a word of warning, if you’ve never used a sat nav device before in any capacity, it takes a tiny bit of getting used to. But a few random button presses and ‘oh, didn’t want that but it’s interesting’ moments later and the training session is complete.

Downloading the app takes a matter of minutes. Once done, fire up the app for the first time and you’re greeted by a very serious, but at the same time amusing, disclaimer that admits no liability for anything at all. If you’re too busy looking at your iPhone and bump into a lamp post, tough. Or if you just try and get directions and the poor app gets them wrong or can’t help, same deal: tough.

legal notice

We like the honesty. But we’re pleased to report neither of those things happened during our tests.

Navigating to your destination is quite easy. You just simply enter where you need to go. Although be sure to enter the city first, then the address otherwise you may end up somewhere completely random if you’re not paying attention.

You can also easily retrace your steps with recently visited destinations and unleash the nosey person in you by locating points of interest. And, in traditional iPhone style, you can call up these places with the swoosh of a finger.

Meni

Switching between views was also a doodle with 2D and 3D modes on offer that you can easily tab between. And, if you’ve got address data saved in your phone book attached to your contacts, the app will guide you there easily too. In super speedy time too if you’ve selected an IQ route.

Although, to state the obvious, don’t expect great results in a poor GPS-signal area.

We were left wandering around Epping Forest for quite some time trying to get out! The car kit is touted as having GPS-boosting strength, although as far as we know you can’t drive a car through the middle of that particular forest, so if it wasn’t for my brilliant ability to search out the road, I may still be there now!

Forest

If, for some reason, you still want to use your new sat nav device as a phone too, worry not. If someone calls you, the app will switch off and into call mode, but you can kick off from where you left once you’ve finished chatting, or just hung up!

There’s very little to complain about with this app. Once you’ve warmed up, it’s easy to use and very pleasant on the eye too. If anything, our only gripes would be the fact that you have to make do with ‘normal’ rather than celebrity voices to guide you (if you turn on that feature) and that the app could only locate actual bank-branded cash machines when we searched for them, meaning if we didn’t know they were there, we’d have missed out on the one attached to the supermarket round the corner and travelled five minutes in the other direction. But, as above, these are more issuettes rather than big problems.

All in all, we found this app rather pleasant and look forward to putting it through its paces in a full review when the car kit’s out.

The video below shows the app being shown off at WWDC.

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