So I picked up my iPhone a couple days ago and I have to say overall I am impressed. Though it also has to be said the iPhone is not perfect as everybody makes it out to be (here’s looking at you Walt Mossberg!)

I’ve been a long Windows CE fan and in fairness I still am. I’ve seen a lot of devices and I’m pretty sure my list below isn’t even complete.

• HP Jordana
• Compaq iPaq
• i-mate smartphone
• i-mate SP3i
• eTen M600
• HTC TyTN II
• AT&T Fuze

So earlier this week I caved in to peer pressure, too many friends who have gone from Windows Mobile to iPhone and can’t be happier, for the most part.

The Good

There is lots that is great about the iPhone and it’s down to these why I am happy with an iPhone until Windows Mobile 7 is released.

• Nice device. Doesn’t feel as cheap as a lot of windows mobile phones, though HTC do make some very good ones!
• Screen size is great, perfect for a lot of content. I would have maybe liked a 9:16 resolution, but it does the trick. The resolution is a little low to what I am now accustom to, but it is good enough (for now).
• The app’s rock. I guess it’s a lot easier to develop for a single OS when all devices have the same functions (for the most part). With Windows Mobile it’s a nightmare with 1000 different options on the phones it’s almost impossible to develop a one for all app.
• Now only if people would convert their apps for Windows Mobile…
• Safari is pretty good. While the PC version is poor (looking at you font layout and stupid update process), the iPhone versions is great! What is even better though than the browser itself are the web pages that are custom for the iPhone. You navigate to King5.com on Windows Mobile you get a nice site with the local news, you navigate to king5.com on the iPhone and you get a great site! Same for other websites like BestBuy.
• Standard nice UI. If you look at windows mobile, even the 6.5 screenshots, the UI still looks like it was made back in 98. Seriously guys, UI means a lot. Apple have pretty much nailed this. All the apps can use the same features, everything looks like it was designed as part of the original device.
• A separate point has to made for this, but the UI is silky smooth. This is what everything needs to be on all devices on all platforms.
• It just works. Ever since I’ve had a Windows Mobile it’s been a pain to answer phone calls. It takes a while before the phone rings. Some times you can’t even answer a call. With the iPhone no problem it just works.

The Bad

There is a lot of bad points here, but even with a lot of these issues, right now it is still better than Windows Mobile. Maybe the Zune HD will be a good competitor from what I’ve heard in the public forums. Now only if they made a non contract version of the Zune HD with a mobile phone app then it would rock probably.

• Hotmail support is poor and only through pop3. Pop3 sucks, if I mark a mail as read on the iPhone it doesn’t mark it as read on my hotmail account. This is a pain it means pretty much reading every mail twice.
  • Still on hotmail, there is no support for contacts or calendar
  • Also I’ve had my hotmail account since the service launched, I don’t plan on giving it up. While you get some extra features with Gmail and the iPhone, I just don’t like Gmail. I’ve looked, I just don’t like it.
• Only support for one exchange account, more likely a limitation by exchange and the same as Windows Mobile.
• You can’t customize SMS, New Mail or Calendar Alert tones.
• The Mail application is the worst mail application I have ever used.
  • For instance when I am in my exchange mail and I want to view my hotmail I have to hit back twice, then click on hotmail, then click on inbox, 4 taps. There should be an easier way to switch accounts.
  • I find the dot to distinguish read and unread mail to be a little hard to notice. I would have liked the mail to remove the bold tag instead.
  • I like to read mails and leave them unread, this also requires several clicks which just are not that fast to do.
  • The screen resolution for the device is a little lower than I am used to, so reading long emails means lots of scrolling. The font also at a small size is not the best looking, again down to the resolution.
• Too many apps! Really as somebody who is new to the iPhone it’s a pain to find good apps. The majority of apps appear to be very low rated and a good chunk of the ones I have tried have been a mixed bag.
• The OS is pretty bug and so are a lot of the applications.
  • Watching a video in an app suddenly started playing a video in my iPod collection!
  • Some apps have a hard time running and just quit as soon as you start them.
• Battery life sucks bad. The second I unplug my phone my battery life goes from 100% to 99%! I get almost a full day. My AT&T Fuze I would get over 6 days at peak. Though in fairness this could be down to me trying every feature out right now.
• Stupid tilt sensor! If I read a web page lying on my side, the iPhone goes landscape. Sure I get why it’s doing it, but please give me an option! Look even the Kindle app has a disable feature!
• Profiles! Sure the button on the side to switch off sounds and have vibrate only is good, actually cool, it still vibrates! I mean when I am in bed, I don’t want to hear my phone pickup email!
• A case! I’ve never had a case other than a screen protector, so while do I feel inclined to use one for the iPhone?… well it scratches so easily. I’ve seen a friends who has theirs as long as mine and already the back is scratched.
• The phone book doesn’t sync with my car stereo. I have a feeling though this is due to some strange policy on the exchange contacts.
• My phone complains about my car stereo not iPhone capable even though it supports iPod… so what, why keep telling me? I get it already.
• Reception is not as good as my old AT&T Fuze… maybe down to the case…
• AT&T won’t unlock the phone to use foreign sim cards! Those bastards!

Conclusion

Look it’s a long line of issues, very long line of issue, but at the end of the day the last point on my good points stands to the highest reason why I am going to use my iPhone for the next year, it just works.

Sure there are some other good and bad points, but this is pretty much the majority of them. If I ever think of more big ones I may add them here. Either way, it’s not for life and I’m keeping my Windows Mobile phone to hand also.

While growing up one game that I loved was the Secret of Monkey Island. Now on Wednesday this week you can buy the original game, plus the 3 sequels all remastered in HD and the first two games of the series have new voiceovers! It’s hard now to imagine a game without any voiceover at all.

Now while I get all excited about replaying these most awesome games, Tales of Monkey Island, the 5th in the series has just released! It’s available on the superb Steam service and I suggest you pick this game up immediately, especially if you are a fan of the series.

Now I played chapter 1 over the last couple days, while it’s not super long, it is enjoyable, the only problem is chapter 2 does not come out until August and each other chapter is a month after also! Oh well, I guess I'll finish this in November!

 

Last time I wrote about my grill I said I purchased it because I was watched Good Eats. Now I’ve never actually made anything I’ve watched on TV, so this was going to be the first time and what I was making was the Grilled Pork Tenderloin.

Yesterday I went to the local QFC and picked up the following:

• 1 whole pork tenderloin, approximately 1 pound
• 1 lime, zest finely grated
• 1/2 cup freshly squeezed lime juice
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 chipotle chili pepper in adobo sauce
• 1 teaspoon vegetable oil

One reason I have never bothered following TV show recipes is that they usually have crazy things in the list of ingredients. This was no exception, trying to find chipotle pepper in adobo sauce as a nightmare. I didn’t even know where to look in the store. After about 20 minutes of going up and down the same aisles 20 times I finally found the final ingredient. The recipe instructions are up here so I won’t bore you with any more details, other than 24 hours later I was ready to grill.

12 minutes later and the pork was ready. Put in some final marinade and cook the rest of the meal and then slice up. A pretty simple dinner.

Everything looking good. I served it up on a bed of rice with bell peppers, peas and spring onion.

All in all, it turned out great, Yum Yum. Definitely something I will be having again. Even the wife loved it! 

I say cycling is a bitch, but really it’s that I am pretty unfit at the moment. My wife the other day purchased a very nice road bike and it’s been years since I’ve been on a bike, so I decided to have a go and boy do I love it. The only problem is that I only last 10 minutes then I collapse.

The last time I bought a bike, I never used it, so this time I’m holding off before I buy one and will use my wife’s for a while. Something that we were discussing was that we could get a cycling computer and log our progress to see if we are improving and where we are improving, so we had a look around and I found this: Garmin Edge 305. Now if you think Garmin and then thing GPS you would be right. This is a GPS device for a bike. Though this device doesn’t give directions, it just mainly logs details as well as giving you a virtual training partner so you can push yourself against yourself.

One thing about that device is that it is pretty damn expensive, so that’s where the power of eBay comes in. I was able to pick up one of these well under half price refurbished. That includes the cadence sensor and heart rate monitor.

I’m a gadget freak also, so this device just blows my mind. It’s pretty sweet how you hook it up to the computer and you can see your progress, or in my case, lack of progress.

You can also hook the trail into Google Earth and while I pretty much hate all things G, the integration is pretty well done. All I need to do now is get back on that bike as often as possible and see how well I do. Wish me luck!

I have my Windows 7 Media Center setup all up and running. Got my two cable cards hooked up to HD Comcast and the PC is recording away. The great thing is I can finally remember to set some shows up to record. One of my favorite shows over here is called Good Eats on the Food Network. Good Eats is pretty much a cookery show which goes into all the science of why to do certain things. So it combines two of my favorite things, science and food :-)

So I was watching Good Eats yesterday and they had on the show a recipe for Grilled Pork Tenderloin. The tenderloins where cooked on a barbeque and I was thinking to myself how I really need to get myself one of those. So that’s what I did.

I have a few restrictions though before I could go buy one. First of all it had to be propane. In the apartments where I live, we are not allowed to use charcoal BBQs because of the smoke. Which is fair enough as it is an apartment block. Second my balcony is pretty small, so I wanted one that doesn’t take up much room. Third and last, I wanted one where I could put into the back of the car and take with me somewhere so we can have a barbeque in a park or something, (to be honest, not sure where yet).

Down to Sears I went after of course a liberal amount of internet research. You can always trust the public right? Down there I picked myself up the Weber Q 100 grill. It is a pretty small grill, big enough for about 4 steaks so that is plenty for me and a couple friends. I really wanted to make sure it was small and this really is. I picked up the collapsible cart and a propane tank and I was ready to go.

I’ve always believed in charcoal barbeques and I was a little reluctant of buying a gas one. (Now remember that I only bought the gas because I can’t use charcoal.) To be honest I think the thing rocks. It heats up fast, it has controllable heat, easy to clean. It’s pretty much perfect. I guess the only thing I miss on this is the taste of the charcoal and from the wood chips, though I hear you can actually emulate this with a gas burner, guess I got to read more about it.

All in all, the weather is good, the food is good and I look forward to the weekend of making the Grilled Pork Tenderloin. Yum yum!