Nikon D90 gets official

With 720p HD video support, this is going to make my next camera upgrade choice a difficult one. Of course it’s not a ‘pro’ camera but the hd video support changes a few things as far as I’m concerned.

Get all the details to see for yourself. Be sure to check out the HD demo video.

Here’s a slick video with Chase Jarvis (obviously a Nikon marketing vid) test driving the D90 ahead of the public:

Sony Speaker Dock for iPhone mini-review

I’ve been thinking about upgrading my clock radio for awhile now and have been looking at the various units with iPod docks built in. I knew that the iPhone had issues with many third party docks/clock radios because of the interference the GSM radio puts out. Not to mention the issue of incompatible docks meant for iPods that could fry your iPhone.

I came across the Sony Speaker Dock/Clock Radio at both London Drugs and Future Shop. The fact that the box specifically states that is made for the iPhone (complete with official logo) seemed like a good thing:

I also came across a similar unit at Costco but there is a very subtle difference in that the model at Costco (and the display model at Future Shop) are the older version that isn’t certified for the iPhone so make sure you get this model number: ICF-C1iPMK2 (MK2 = Mark 2).

Here’s a couple of points about the device:

Pro:

• very nice sounding and can go very loud without distortion - almost too much for a clock radio
• comes with a small remote that lets you easily navigate your iPod/iPhone menus, choose playlists, etc as well as control volume.
• iPhone playback works through speaker dock regardless of whether or not the mute switch is on or off the iPhone
• you can set independent volume levels for each of the two alarms. You can have the radio alarm volume at one level and the iPod/iPhone level at another when used as an alarm
• you can play the iPod at night and put a sleep timer on it and everything shuts down nicely when specified
• it’s cheap! I got my unit for $79 during a weekend sale. Regular price is $99 everywhere which is still cheaper than other similar units with less features
• the dock can even accommodate my iPhone in it’s Speck Pixel case which is probably one of the bulkiest covers you can get
• it has an AUX In so it can be used with my Zune ;)

Cons:

• the clock display is too bright - despite having three brightness options, the lowest is too much in a dark room
• the snooze button is behind the iPhone - not a huge deal but a little awkward to reach while half asleep

As you can see, there is a lot to like about this dock. It would make a decent kitchen radio as well and comes in black or white too.

I was wondering how you use the iPhone with the alarm feature. Previous iPod’s had a wake/sleep to music option but the iPhone, strangely, does not. If you don’t already have something selected, the alarm will simply play the first song in your library. If you select a playlist the night before, the alarm will start up on whichever song/playlist you left off at which is pretty slick.

Check out the full specs on the Apple Store as well as the positive reviews.

MobileCamp Vancouver 2008

MobileCampVancouver is bringing together iPhone junkies, Crackberry addicts, couch surfers, coffee shop hackers, vagabonds and mobile nomads to share the current state and their visions for the future direction of mobility. MobileCampVancouver hopes to support the many voices helping to unlock the potential of a truly mobile life. Topics may include - but are not limited to - mobile gaming, entrepreneurship, social mobility and presence, near field communication, physical hyperlinking, mobile storytelling, the importance of open standards, protocols, and platforms, linux based devices, and mobility on other continents. MobileCampVancouver is an ad-hoc conference in the spirit of Barcamp. Check out the the Rules of Bar Camp to learn what to expect. 

See my post from last year’s inaugural MobileCamp. I’ll be back this year and it looks like Roland and I will do something iPhone related which is to be determined at this point. Drop a comment if there is something you’d like to see.

MobileCampVancouver will take place at WorkSpace on Saturday September 6th. Signup using the form linked on the wiki site or go here. Hope to see you there!

Rogers changes their hardware upgrade eligibility rules

When the iPhone 3G launched, you could only get one if you were a new customer or an existing customer that hadn’t upgraded their handset in the last 12 month period, regardless of how much your monthly bill was. You couldn’t even pay the full amount to get one without a contract.

After seeing it mentioned on a number of forums, it appears that Rogers has changed that eligibility from 12 months down to 3 months. My wife who had upgraded in March of this year, would have had to wait until March 2009 to get one but I was able to successfully order one for her today (16gb for $349) and it’s shipping out on Monday.

So if you’ve been thinking you weren’t eligible to get an iPhone and wanted one, simply log into your Rogers online account and choose ‘upgrade my phone’ - if it shows an iPhone as an option, you should be able to do it online, on the phone or in store (fastest).

I’m not a Fido customer so I can’t confirm this is true with them but I presume since they are owned by Rogers, the same rule would now apply if you’re with Fido.

Just in time to grab that $30/6gb data plan before it expires at the end of this month.

Samsung launches the Instinct in Canada

Tonight I attended the launch party for the Samsung Instinct phone. I wanted to personally check it out to see if it lived up to the ‘iPhone killer’ label that has been floating around. Unfortunately it doesn’t but that doesn’t mean I hated it.

Here’s my quick take on it which is appropriate since I only had it for about 20 minutes to play with:

Things I liked:

• smaller than an iPhone and feels nice in the hand while holding it to use as a phone
• has haptic feedback (vibration) so when you press on a button or type on the touchscreen, you get tactile feedback
• turn-by-turn GPS navigation although I couldn’t truly test this out inside a bar
• no configure voice commands to launch apps and services as well as dialing
• nice roomy landscape keyboard made it easy to thumb type
• a couple of slick games included (albeit demos) including a nice version of Scene It (movie trivia) which was fun to play - not sure of other game purchase/download options
• very cheap unlimited data plan from Bell or Telus ($10) but that may also be a negative since there are no 3rd party apps (yet)
• the phone dialer and related features seems simple and intuitive although some elements of the UI seemed Apple-ish (swipe to end call)
• beefy, removable battery
• much better weather app than the iPhone

Things I didn’t like:

• no wifi - maybe the thinking is you’ve got unlimited data, why would you need wifi?
• somewhat clunky touchscreen - perhaps due to a calibration issue on my demo unit but haven’t we moved beyond calibration?
• non-standard browser which seems to have trouble loading/sizing images and rendering basic css
• I was under the impression it was Windows Mobile under the hood - it’s not (it’s Samsung’s own creation) which actually makes things worse since there isn’t access to that library of (WM) software available to users although the Samsung rep did say that 3rd party apps ‘were possible’ but would most likely have to come from the carrier
• the IM button launches Windows Live….mmmkay.
• the camera was about the same as the iPhone (2 megapixels) so it looked like crap inside the bar with low light
• in my limited time with the device, multiple times I was holding it portrait and while using it, would be forced to use the keyboard in landscape mode. I later found out there is a button to change the orientation on the keyboard itself but it was clunky when compared to the iPhone’s auto-rotation depending on its orientation
• Stylus? McFly?
• again, I’m not sure if it was just my demo device or not but it seemed that whenever I did anything related to the internet, I’d get some kind of warning screen that I was about to incur data charges. I would assume the demo units were on the cheap data plan but maybe not. I would also assume that if you were on said plan, you wouldn’t be told this over and over again
• no camera flash but the iPhone doesn’t have one either so not a huge deal to me
• playing back some of the demo videoclips on my device looked like crap and weren’t full screen - the media player seemed lacking

Overall it wasn’t a horrible device and I probably could have used more time with it to fully explore it’s features…it just seemed like it was designed in a world where the iPhone didn’t exist (CDMA land?). I really was hoping it would offer more competitive features but unfortunately, the Instinct comes across as a Windows Mobile clone that is trying to look as slick as the iPhone.

I could see this phone being ideal for someone that is stuck on a CDMA carrier or that possibly doesn’t need or want the expanded options the iPhone has (which come with a higher sticker and data-plan price).

I’m still amazed that (in my opinion, of course, since this is my blog) none of the phone manufacturers have managed to actually create an iPhone killer yet. Not even close. Which is really too bad…competition is always good and only benefits the consumer in the end.

One final note about Samsung: I think the person behind @theinstinct on Twitter has been doing a great job at responding to the detractors, helping spread the word about the product and answering questions in a positive and professional manner. It is refreshing to see bigger companies using social media to try to engage an audience…even if it may seem like an uphill battle against strong competition. Perhaps Samsung just hired the right people to promote the Instinct.

Book’em Dano!

Don’t listen to Tod….go and book your hotel for SXSW Interactive 2009 now or you’ll be sleeping on the street!

Operation could not be completed

Do you see this a lot on your iPhone 3G?

While downtown for the fireworks the other day, got to experience this error many times personally. In talking with others, it seems that if you live/work in downtown Vancouver, you probably see it a lot. Is this due to Rogers having insufficient network bandwidth as a result of the iPhone’s success? This only applies to the 3G network (or Edge I guess) and not wifi.

I’ve had wifi turned off since I got the iPhone on July 11th as I wanted to really see what the difference between Edge, 3G and wifi was through regular usage. I don’t recall ever seeing that message until I was downtown - I live in the suburbs and work on the North Shore.

Also, during the fireworks, from a stationary spot on English Bay, my signal dropped repeatedly as did 3G and even Edge. Of course, this was expected due to about 250,000 people being in the same place and judging from the number I saw, just about everyone had an iPhone. I can’t fault Rogers for that one…but just walking around downtown and not being able to connect to a site is pretty bad…and this was a Saturday afternoon. I can only imagine what it’s like during the week.

Olympus 8mm Fisheye Lens

After my post about an inexpensive way to add a Fisheye lens to your camera bag arsenal, I was contacted by some really nice folks at Olympus Canada who offered to let me try out a real fisheye lens which costs a little more than what I paid for my lens adapter (okay maybe a lot more). They also loaned me some other nice gear to go with the E-520 DSLR camera body they sent to use with the fisheye lens since it’s not compatible with my Nikon gear. Can you say Christmas in August?

I already don’t want to give it back…I’m loving this 8mm Fisheye lens!

Here’s a (not so) small taste of what I’ve done with it in the slightly more than 24 hours that I’ve had it:

You can check out the rest of the photos I’ve taken with the Olympus gear on Flickr. I’ve only barely touched the camera settings at this point (haven’t even cracked the manual)…been having too much fun with the fisheye. The fireworks weren’t a planned trip so I didn’t even have a tripod with me but the photos still turned out pretty cool…it’s all going to make going back to my Nikon gear very difficult!

Battery saving tips for iPhone 3G users

Is the battery life of your new iPhone 3G disappointing you? Try these three tips to increase it’s daily usage before having to recharge. I went from getting about a days worth of moderate usage to two days easily only doing the first two tips - the third is for when you need to squeeze a little extra juice out while away from a wall outlet or USB port.

1. Turn off PUSH

Turning off PUSH support will go a long way to improving battery life.

Decide how often you really need to check for email (I can live with every 30 minutes) and set it to Fetch accordingly.

You just have to launch the Mail application and it will check for email anyways if that time frame isn’t good enough but at least it won’t be checking in the background all the time, slowly killing the battery.

You’ll find this setting in the Settings menu under ‘Fetch New Data’.


2. Turn off Location Services

Also known as ‘the GPS’ setting on the iPhone, it’s turned on by default. Turning it off is probably the single most battery saving thing you can do short of not using your iPhone.

This doesn’t mean that Google Maps will stop working. It just means that when off, Location Services isn’t powering the GPS and looking for a location. If you launch Google Maps or any other location aware application, the iPhone will turn on Location Services.

Keep in mind, once turned on by one of these apps, it won’t turn back off by itself when the app is closed so you may have to keep turning this off.

This setting is located in the Settings/General area.



3. Turn off 3G
Desperate to keep that phone alive a little longer? Simply switch off your 3G to gain a few more precious minutes of juice. Of course, surfing will be slower since you’ll be using the Edge network instead, but this tip is really meant if you need to get a few more minutes of life for a voice call before the iPhone shuts down.

Depending on where you live/work, this may simply be a better option anyways if your 3G reception is spotty.

You’ll find this option under the Settings/General/Network option.

Griffin PowerJolt for iPhone 3G

A few people have been asking me about car chargers for the iPhone 3G so I thought I’d post a quick note about what I’m using.

First of all, be careful what you plug your shiny new iPhone into! Plenty of things are meant for iPods only and can actually fry your iPhone. Many iPod accessories do work with iPhones but unless you want to try out the warranty replacement program, do a quick google search about whatever device you are hoping is compatible. You’ve been warned!

Secondly, many old iPod accessories (and some 1st gen iPhone ones) use firewire as their method of powering/charging. Apple switched to USB power fairly recently so this is why many of these older devices won’t work with a newer iPod or iPhone. You will most likely get some variation on this message “This accessory is not compatible with your iPhone”.

You should be able to use any USB based car charging device - basically it’s a cigarette adaptor that has a USB port on the end. These tend to come with many gadgets these days - one came with a kit for my Nintendo DS, another with my GPS, etc. Simply plug in the USB cable that came with your iPhone 3G and you should be good to go. I didn’t want to have to lug that cable around so I simply picked up the Griffin PowerJolt (version 2) on my last trip to the Apple Store for $20. It comes with the USB plug and a black USB to Dock cable.

The ring around the USB port lights up green when powered.

and red when charging.

and here it’s connected in the car to my iPhone which is sporting my new green Speck PixelSkin cover and sitting in my Palm ‘Universal PDA holder’ which previously held my Treo 650.

So far so good…it completely charged my iPhone while driving home tonight.