Review: iPhone Stencils

I woke up today to find these waiting for me:

I bought two so I could have one on my desk and one in my bag at *all* times. You never know when a creative idea might strike! I’d also imagine losing one wouldn’t be too hard at all.

There’s not really an awful lot one can say about these iphone stencils, they’re metal templates which help designers draw concept iPhone apps. Containing most of the elements an iPhone app designer would need: buttons, icons a slider etc.

The first thing I noticed as I opened the minimal packaging was the pencil. I love that they included a mechanical pencil – the idea, its sound and very nice. In practice however, I hate this pencil – its plasticky, its cheap and its utterly useless to me. A simple run-of-the-mill pencil would have satisfied me more than the cheap feeling and poor performance of this pencil. More than anything, it made the few rough edges around the stencil even more pronounced, which is kind of odd considering none of my pens or pencils seem to suffer from that.

Moving onto the stencil itself, as a design tool its perfectly balanced. it has the right number of shapes, does the job admirably – though I would’ve liked a square cutout to mimic the home button square, but its not like its necessary. There were a couple of issues however: it sucks up finger prints worse than anything I’ve seen in recent memory, which is disappointing considering the pictures on the store suggest that its almost a matte-type surface, which I would have preferred.

Smoothness is also a bit of a nagging point, the edges on the outside are not quite up to my standard of ’smooth’. Its rough enough to make your writing impliment jut out – at least in one place, where they’ve clearly cut out the template from the rest of the stock. I expected more from seeing the pictures of it to be perfectly honest. However, like I mentioned earlier, it all depends on your drawing implement of choice; with most I’d imagine the minimal roughness will not be noticeable – its just a little irritating for the needless perfectionists. uh huh… me.

Finally, the metal stock is really too thin. I’m sorry but this I just had to bring up, its incredibly thin – too thin in my view. It would take nothing to bend it out of shape, in fact so much so that I can see it easily being bent out of shape if left in a bag without being protected inside a hardback book. For $16 US each, plus the international shipping costs, I would have hoped for something a little bit more sturdy.

All things considered however, I think these stencils are a wonderful aid for sketching up iPhone app designs. I usually prefer photoshop to anything else, but sometimes you need that hands on-touch.

On that note, its time for bed. I’ve spent all day playing with these things, my desk is a mess and its well past 2:30 on a weekday!!

** Updated to include links to Design Commission website

iPhone 3GS Problems

Yes that’s right, the iPhone 3GS I got on launch day (26th June) is already useless.

The iPhone3GS is now completely unresponsive to input on the top row of icons on the home screen and has intermittent responsiveness everywhere else. At one point it even opened spotlight search, and typed ‘ipo’ by itself!!

I believe this was an existing issue with the device which was made worse when it dropped on the ground as I was getting out of a car, it fell all of one foot into concrete/grass (only slight cosmetic damage). But ever since, its just gotten much worse, ever since I had the iPhone it was opening apps every now and then without my input. I would take it out of my pocket and somehow it had opened some app or other while in the locked mode.

So, now I’m waiting for apple to send me the coffin to send to them for it to be replaced. Will try to put a hold on my o2 contract as soon as possible – theres no way I’m paying for repair time!!

iPhone 3GS vs BlackBerry Storm 9500 Camera Shootout

The title says it all.

I took a Research In Motion BlackBerry Storm 9550 and an Apple iPhone 3GS (just released in Ireland) and took pictures of various subjects in typical situations – outside, inside and with sub-par lighting conditions. The rules are eleganty simple:

• Take 3 Pictures of any given subject with each device, try to move as little as possible.
• Pick the best representative sample of the three photos.
• Compare….

The following images are direct from the devices, no manipulation was performed. This explains why some photos are oriented in a different direction:

iPhone 3GS	BlackBerry Storm

* I made numerous attempts, but it seems anytime I take a photo of the iPhone 3GS with the BlackBerry, the screen has a significant green hue.

Expect a video comparison soon also.

iPhone 3GS hits Irish shores tomorrow at 8am

The latest and greatest phone to come out of Apple’s iPhone camp, the iPhone3GS will hit O2 stores from 8am tomorrow morning.

Apple’s iPhone3GS (‘upto 2x faster’) brings with it a faster processor, more ram, slightly improved battery life, video recording and editing, MMS, Copy & Paste, voice recording, improved GPS thanks to the included compass and more from €199 for the 16GB and €299 for the 32GB models on billpay starting at €40 p/m or alternatively €519 and €609 respectively for speakeasy customers.

Unfortunately, only black models will be available at launch. Customers prefering a white model may request one from staff in participating o2 stores or online.

For eager iPhone3GS customers, the following stores will open at 8am to cater to your technolust:

• www.o2.ie/iphone
• 50 Grafton Street, Dublin
• 87 Grafton Street, Dublin
• 5 Henry Street, Dublin
• 52 Henry Street, Dublin
• Patrick Street, Cork
• Shop Street, Galway
• Williamsgate Street, Galway
• Cruises Street, Limerick

Irc Operators: the scurge of civilised communication

There are people I know who will remain nameless, who have at one point in time operated Internet Relay Chatrooms (IRC). These people could be ordinary folk in regular conversation, perhaps a little socially awkward, but not always or obviously so. Transport these very same people into the dank cave-like environment where IRC resides and they transmogrify themselves into Golems.

I should mention, for the unintiated: IRC is an ancient (by Internet standards) communication standard which lets people from all over the globe create chatrooms and talk about how emo they are, or how particularly important their world view is, despite how disjointed or warped. Just like everywhere else on the Intertubes, only seedier.

I cant explain it and I dont know why but as soon as ordinary people are given even a minute amount of power over others, regardless of the context or environment, they go bonkers. absolutely.

It has been so rare that I have experienced a civilised, well thinking and sensible person in an IRC channel, that I cant be entirely sure that I didnt imagine them out of pure desperation.

Of those who I have known to become moderators, operators and/or admins of IRC servers, once they believe they have power they go power mad. Sabre rattling as and when the mood hits them, ostensibly claiming omnipotence over all that is ‘the chat’ and omniscience over everything else.

One can easily lose faith in humanity with the types of individuals that lurke in the cellar of the Internet that is, the IRC channels.

IRC is only of value whilst it lets people talk freely without despotic administration or political back biting. To those who think that IRC is the be-all and end-all, you need to re-evaluate yourself, there are more important things in life than watching a monitor waiting for someone to slip up so you can crack down your personal brand of justice upon them.

The Internet is meant to be about the free exchange of ideas, not an exercise in ‘how best can I control my sheep so they worship me most’.

Singularity University

The Singularity University is a cutting edge university, with a multi-dicipline facaulty and curriculum, its possibly the best example of the ultimate learning environment. An environment where the smartest and most passionate people from around the world join to learn from some of the best minds on various subjects.

The Singularity University aims to assemble, educate and inspire a cadre of leaders who strive to understand and facilitate the development of exponentially advancing technologies and apply, focus and guide these tools to address humanitys grand challenges.

I’d love the oportunity to be a student at Singularity-U, but the entrance requirements are necessarily strict, with only 30 students permitted in the first year and 120 the year after.

If your interested in making the world a better place, and working with some of the brightest minds of our age, you might consider the [Singularity University]

Students place call to Astronaught on DIY Equipment

The International Space Station care of mpancha on Flickr

The [GlobeAndMail] via [Engadget] report that a group of four college students from Toronto, Canada have accomplished a technological feat by constructing their very own astronaught-phone; with which, they managed to place a ten minute call to the International Space Station using a radio system they built themselves.

While school contacts with the space station are routinely made through the Amateur Radio on the International Space Station program, many of those contacts are made using a traditional ham radio.

“It’s an incredible feat of undertaking and technology, and I’d just like to say I’m really, really proud of this team,” said Humber instructor Mark Rector.

“They’re playing way, way above their league today.”

more at the [GlobeAndMail]

ALTO disaproves of Eircom/EMI deal

Silicon Republic is reporting that ALTO, the Alternative Licensed Telecoms Operators group whose membership includes BT Ireland, Magnet Networks, NTL, Chorus, Smart Telecom, Budget Telecom, Cable & Wireless, Colt Telecom, Complete Networks, Digiweb, ESB Telecoms, Verizon and 3 Play Plus, dissaproves of the “draconian deal” struck between Eircom and EMI which would put customers at risk of having their Internet connection cut off after a 3 strikes and your out rule.

While we obviously do not condone illegal downloading or any illegality on or over the internet, we firmly disapprove of any draconian measures that would compromise the privacy, speed or services offered to broadband users. We do not need measures to further impede the development of next generation broadband in Ireland – Ronan Lupton of ALTO

You can read more about ALTO’s reaction at Silicon Republic.

Eircom makes a deal with the devil

The IrishTimes reports that Eircom has settled a lawsuit with EMI Records that puts all of its customers’ connection to the net at the will of EMI with a 3 strikes and your out policy. After 3 unsubstantiated accusations of copyright threat by EMI, Eircom will disconnect customers from the Internet.

We live in a world where connectivity to the Internet is as important as the ability to use public roads. How safe would you feel if your car could be taken away from you after 3 unsubstantiated accusals?