1 iPhonetastic {anchor:iPhonetastic} {image:img=iphone.jpg|align=float-right} So: setting aside the reliability issues of MobileMe's synchronisation (which, to be fair, is a lot better than it was), Cassiel Central is now home to a shiny new {link:iPhone 3G|http://www.apple.com/uk/iphone/}. The final push was that the iPod nano is about to go off and live in a {link:Paris gallery|http://www.cda95.fr/} for three months, and we didn't want to be left without our daily injection of BBC podcasts. While the {link:Treo 680|http://www.palm.com/us/products/smartphones/treo680/} is a decent phone and a rather good PDA (especially with {link:Agendus|http://www.iambic.com/agendus/palmos/} installed), the Internet experience (web browsing in particular) is utterly miserable, and (without unlimited tariff or wi-fi) expensive, so it was time to bring things up-to-date. First impressions of the iPhone: ergonomically superb, with a beautiful user interface - everything else I've used now seems clumsy and hopelessly antiquated. I had a rough time with the on-screen keyboard for a day or two, but now it works pretty well: either it has learned to be accurate, or I have. Integration with the Mac is as smooth as one would expect. It easily beats the Palm in terms of networking (and in terms of synchronisation), but is a slightly weaker PDA. (But then, compared to the {link:Psion devices|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psion_5}, everything is a weak PDA.) I've not gone nuts in the iTunes App Store, but have picked up one or two things: {link:OmniFocus|http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnifocus/} as a to-do and workflow manager, and {link:1Password|http://agilewebsolutions.com/products/1Password} for global password management. (Crucially, both synchronise to powerful desktop equivalents.) The Facebook app is rather nice, and {link:NetNewsWire|http://blogs.newsgator.com/daily/2007/07/bringing-rss--1.html} works well for the daily RSS fix. {link:FileMagnet|http://www.magnetismstudios.com/filemagnet/} is a handy over-the-air file transfer tool which can view documents, although it falls over if they're not small and simple, limiting its usefulness. But in terms of sheer coolness, the {link:TouchOSC|http://hexler.net/touchosc} control surface app looks like being a lot of fun. I'll be coding some MaxMSP translators for it tomorrow - if it works out, I'll gig with it in Paris. 2008-10-08 09:35:15.0 2008-10-08 09:31:11.0 Wed Oct 08 09:34:32 UTC 2008