I’ve been trying for some time now to spruce up this site to make it a little more graphical and catchy.  One thing that I have wanted to sort is the creation of an official icon that will be used by Apple products when someone created a shortcut to this site and places is on their home screen.

After a few web searches I found varying success with the tools that people have placed online to create an icon or manipulate an uploaded file.  The most common issue being that the sites out there still produce output files on the lower 57 x 57 pixel format and not the 72 x 72 pixel format that looks nice on the iPad.  Originally I was of it opinion that upping from 57 to 72 pixels really can’t make that much difference, can it?? Believe me, it is worth the effort!

So here’s the approach that I have taken to keep the logo quality as high as possible.

That basically completes getting your icon saved on the home screen of an iPad if people like your site that much.  However, there was one more thing that I wanted to change about the way Apple products auto manipulate the image you provide as the icon and goes beyond the information that I found on the LifeinTECH site.

What you will notice is that by default, the auto manipulation will not only curve off the corners of your image but it will also add what is known as a “glossy” look to the icon.  This may look good in some cases, but for me it just distracted from the effect that I was after.

After hunting through the Safari Reference Library I found that it is possible to disable this glossy finish by changing the code from step 5 above.  To disable the feature use <link rel=”apple-touch-icon-precomposed” href=”/images/apple-icon.png”> instead.  The key change here being the apple-touch-icon-precomposed part.
 

The house searching site Rightmove have released an app for the iPad that should enhance browsing through new properties for rent and sale in your local area.

Having used the app for the past week or so I can say that it is nice to use but has the feel of being released to the public a little soon. I like the look and feel of the application as you browse through the search results (it feels kind of like a landscape brochure; just without the iBooks page turning feature), and the image quality of the pictures is much higher than that you get on the webpage. However here is where my love for the application ends and what I hope will make it’s way into future releases of the software:

• Login to your online profile
• Access to saved properties
• Access to saved searches
• Display of property floor plans

Whilst this list may not be very long, I think that it is critical to the success of this application. Let’s see what the comes in any updates!

In the mean time, download the Rightmove iPad app free from iTunes and give it a try yourself!

UPDATE (08/Jun/2010): Rightmove have updated their app in the last couple days and while they have not addresses all of my points above, it does look like it is on the product roadmap.  I have high hopes!

I recently had a chance to get my hand on an imported iPad, and with the delay in Apple’s launch to the rest of the world and the 15% hike that had been applied to the UK retail prices, I could not turn down a USA import!

One thing that really got me thinking however was, “do I get the 3G, or the WiFi only model?”.  While I don’t (didn’t) see myself really using the device away from WiFi capable areas, would it be sensible to cover the base and get the 3G model just because???

Well I thought of my wallet and went with the WiFi only model, thinking that I could always root my Google Android based Nexus One to enable tethering.  Thus being able to use the data contract that I already have in place in the event that I don’t have WiFi access.

This need recently became all to very apparent when visiting another of our company office that does not have a public broadband access and on a trip to the Peak District.  The only access that I could find was through BT’s Openzone network.  While this would have worked great, I have a pet hate about paying for such access.  Having a mobile phone that could act as a portable hotspot or MiFi type device would be the holy grail.

Recent rumors have hinted towards the Froyo (Android 2.2) release enabling the tethering feature as a default option rather than needing to root your Eclair, (2.1) phone.  Google confirmed this today at the their IO 2010 event!

While I still do not know when I will see Froyo actually on my Nexus One (I’ve not heard of any public release dates yet), it now means that I have the perfect setup for what I want to do.  After all if I am going to be sat in a coffee shop with my iPad, I am going to have the phone in my pocket!

Now I just have to hope that the mobile operators do not find a way to track down and block iPad traffic connected via tethering!  Anyway, the way I see it, I pay for data access on my mobile phone contract, so as long as I stay within the FUP (Fair Usage Policy), what have the likes of Vodafone got to complain about!

Like many, I was truly underwhelmed with the release of Apple’s venture to take over the tablet market with the release of their iPad device; it seemed to be nothing more than a ‘jumped-up’ iPod Touch.

However, after doing a little digging and reading what else would be coming to the market during 2010 it soon became clear just how clever Apple had been.  There was no need to go all bells and whistles on this release, no other manufactures products had anything ground-breaking to offer either!  And it would keep the manufacturing costs down.

Having only been a smartphone user since August 2009 (I know, I was well behind the times), I am already finding myself using my phone as the primary device that I use for email, news reading and the quick bit of web surfing to find that snippet of information; resorting to the laptop for longer stints in front of the console and for processing photo’s etc.  What draws me to the phone as the first port of call is the fact that it is ‘instant on’ but with the limitation of screen size being the major disadvantage.  Step-up the iPad I thought, until I saw the UK release prices.

Actual price camparison between the US and UK seem to differ but here is my take on the situation.  I have included a typical US Sales Tax of 6% since the UK prices already include our VAT costs and at the time of writing, the exchange buys you 0.675482 GBP per USD.

As you can see, the UK products have a double digit markup from the prices that our North American friend have to pay.  Do Apple expect me to believe that it costs that much more to see this device on our shores?  I had always thought that the 32GB option would be the break-point for a usable device if you intend on watching video content on it but at a starting price of £499, my wallet has puckered up tighter than a ducks ring-piece!

I have not had the fortune to use one in person yet, maybe the experience just makes you have to get one but I think that LifeinTECH summed it up nicely by sending Apple’s quote right back at them, “iPad, a magical and revolutionary product at an unbelievable price”.

Dropbox, an online document management tool that is way cool because it just ‘works’ and gives you the first 2GB of storage space free, have announced that their tool will soon be coming to Google Android!

They already have an iPhone native app out there so I can wait to get easy, direct access to the files I store online via my Android handset.

Newcomers, but why wait….

I have been using Dropbox for about a year now to auto sync files between my main home machine and laptop and it has worked flawlessly, even when I have been stupid enough to create file conflicts, Dropbox creates a conflict file so you do not loose any data.

The other main use is for PC rebuilds, no longer do I need to go around backing up data that is left on the PC. Just reinstall the OS, install the Dropbox client, tell it you login detail and off it will go, pulling down all that information for you again in the background (while you go through installing the 5000 Windows security patches).

On family members PCs, I have gone as far to change the target destination of their ‘My Documents’ folder to be directly into the Dropbox storage location.

That’s a lot of PC talk, Apple Mac and Linux users are just as welcome to the party! Dropbox has clients for those operating systems as well.

If that has got you interested in giving Dropbox a try, sign-up for your free account here, and you will get an extra 250MB of storage space for free!

Still need to know more, here’s a video…

UPDATE, 23rd March 2010: Phandroid posted a thread on Dropbox for Android, in their post they list the app to be a few months away from being on the Market, so that would put a release date somewhere around May 2010.  Phandroid do have a selection of beta release screen shots if you are interested (or you can get it direct from the Dropbox blog).
No doubt it will need at least v1.6 of Android (as the screen shots are taken from a Motorola Droid), so Hero users are still reliant on HTC giving us that illusive upgrade.

I had a thought whilst in the office today(crazy idea I know!)….  wouldn’t it be nice if the people that visit this blog from mobile devices had a special view to speed up and simplify their experience.

Lowing behold, at the bottom of the admin page, I found a link to a plugin called WPtouch.  A plugin that creates an iPhone/Touch like interface for both Android and iPhoneOS devices.

My first thought when looking to install the plug was that the configuration of the tool would be a royal pain in the back-side.  However, as with every other plugin I have tried, literally all I have done is enable to plugin.

The plugin has no effect of you full browser client viewers that come to the blog and you can disable to mobile view from the phone itself to see more information.

So far I have tested (and can confirm it works great) on the iPhoneOS 3.0 and Android 1.5 (Cupcake).  I had a colleague test access from a Zune and a WiMo 6.5 device, both of these Microsoft products saw the normal web browser client view.  That is to be expected as the took does not list the Microsoft devices as supported.
Here are some screen shots of what you can get straight out of the box:

A report AndroLib has released the year 1 stats for what can be found on the Android Market in comparison to the Apple App Store.

Whilst the stats would say that the App Store was more than twice a popular to developers in the first year (50,000 apps for Apple and 20,000 for Android), 60% of the Android Market apps are FREE.  In contrast, only 23% of the Apple’s 100,000 current apps cost nothing to use.

To date I have only ever downloaded the total free or light versions of the apps available through the Market (mainly coz I don’t want to pay for something that I can read a real review of first).  What I can say is that paid for apps look to be getting more prevalent whilst at the same time the quality is increasing; that can’t be a bad thing.

With so many more manufacturers releasing Android phones within their range, I am sure that it will attract an increasing number of developers looking to make some money on a store that is not so saturated.  You could say the same about the Nokia OVI thing…. but lets get serious here !!!

Year 2 figures will be interesting to see, in the mean time I will be making use of Google’s land-of-the-free