Apple iPhone Orange or o2 - real life experience

After a lot of waiting Orange finally released the iPhone this month.

I've put up with pretty poor reception at home for the past 2 years with my iPhone on o2 but put up with it because the phone is simply brilliant. Places I go worked well on o2, all outside London I have to say, but pretty ood 3G or EDGE whereevere I was spending time at weekends and at work. Packaged with free The Cloud and BT Openzone I was happy with it all apart from the home coverage.

Orange led its advertising on its far superior 3G network coverage. I also knew that Orange coverage at home is full bars. Orange press releases made us all think data would be like comparing broadband to an old 56k modem!

So one week after launch day I have to report its all hype. Orange has significantly poorer reception for calls and data. The data seems to be garden walled too and slower. Some applications dont even update (Sky News shows weeks old news on my Orange iPhone!).

Incidentally, this experience is mirrored by a friend of mine in different coverage areas too.

So I'm running back to o2. All is forgiven. The future isn't bright for the iPhone on Orange.  Its now on Amazon to be sold...

How to find The Lazy Fish

My Tom Tom didn't know the way to The Lazy Fish near Cockermouth.  The directions the website www.thelazyfish.co.uk say

Turn left signposted Wythop Mill. After a few hundred metres you will see St Cuthbert’s Church on your left and a private lane opposite. Turn right up this lane and Brook House is the first house on the left. Just over the bridge is a parking area for The Lazy Fish.

So, google St Cuthberts Church gives us a OS Map reference, NY163295.  You can't enter this on your TomTom, so then I found a site to help convert from OS to Latitude and Longitude.

http://www.movable-type.co.uk/scripts/latlong-gridref.html

This gives us 54°39′14.69″N  003°17′53.01″W

Robin Hood Marathon 2009

The official results are in for the Robin Hood Half Marathon in Nottingham 2009. Came 319 with a PB time of 01:33:00 out of 6645 runners!

Migrating Macbooks and iPhones - Part 1

If you've looked at how to transfer your music and videos from your iPhone to a new macbook you'll know how much rubbishware there is out there looking to charge you.  Ive stumbled on Pod to Mac - it works, freely, and out the box.

http://www.podtomac.com/

Google Sync on Iphone for Google Apps accounts

Follow my instrutions for normal google accounts, but you need to follow the steps below after creating the account on the iphoneto configure multiple calendars. If you only have one calendar then you dont necessarilyy need to do this other than to verify the admin for your domain has enabled sync services.

Sync is by default turned off for google apps accounts.  It can be turned on by following these instructions, then follow the steps here to add/manage the calendars that are synced.  If you prefer, jump to the shortcut tip at the end!

1. On your iphone goto use Safari and goto http://m.google.com/ and scroll down to the box "Google Apps user" tap to configure your domain.  In the pop up box enter your full domain name.

2. Now click on the sync icon that is in the highlighted area

 

3. Now Click on the Sign in with your Google Apps account

4. Enter your user name (not a very iphone friendly sign in screen here but it works...) and sign in

7. You'll now get the manage devices screen and be able to choose your calendars...

** Shortcut **
Steps 1 to 5 seem to be driving the creation of the URL for your apps domain
which is https://m.google.com:443/sync/settings/a/yourdomainname.co.uk/iconfig/device

If you want to enter the above address in Safari on your iphone replacing yourdomainname.co.uk with yep, your domain name.

How to Setup Push Sync Google Calendar Contacts (Exchange Method)

This is a step by step guide to setting up Google Sync services on iPhones running Apple iphone OS 3.0.  Step by step this is how to link your google calendar and google mail contacts to your iPhone.  2 way syncing is soone yours! Let me know any  problems to make this better for us all.

UPDATED to link to steps for Google Apps accounts (New Post)

So, From the home screen, lets goto Settings>

 

In Settings, touch Mail, Contacts, Calendars >

  

Touch Add Account > then choose (yes oddly!) Microsoft Exchange

  

Enter the exchange information shown (substitute user.name in the following screens for your own google account - especially careful if you have a googlemail.com account typically in Europe).

Enter your Email address, press Next, Enter the username and password, Press Next.

  

Enter the server as m.google.com

  

This often causes a problem, users are unsure what to do... just click on Accept on the unable to verify warning... Then Next...

  

Now it will show you the following screen, be sure to Turn Off mail push - Google doesnt support it yet and if you leave it on you will get password errors popping up later...

  

Ok, we're nearly there, you will see your new account all setup now and  your iphone address book will look like the groups screen below.. whilst you're here your iphone is busy talking to the google servers downloading what is needed.

  

Now if you have multiple calendars, be sure to open Safari on your iphone (this doesnt work from your PC or Mac!) and visit http://m.google.com/sync as shown below.  UPDATE: If you have a Google Apps account (not straight forward gmail etc) please follow the steps in this post now.

  

Sign into  your google account...

  

You may have one device or more (I've tested 3 different iphones recently so have 3 showing.. the only way to distinguish them is the date and time fields though...)

  

You will then find your calendars that you have setup on the Web Calendar.  Be sure to tick the boxes of the calendars you want to sync to your phone...

Your'e all done! If you have a lot of data make sure you have a data connection, Wifi is best to start with.  Remember this first sync will only download from google. It wont upload anything here already on your iphone.  New additions on your iphone will push straight up to google though..

Enjoy!

Nike LunarGlide+ Preview vs Brooks Addiction 8

Arrived by UPS today week ahead of general release in the UK. As always laced up with Nike+ and tracked a short route I do regularly.  They felt great.  Time wise a bit quicker, could be a number of reasons not just the shoes of course but they look good and felt very different on the foot.  Will keep running the next few days and see how I get on!

Nike Lunarglide+ (2009)



Brooks Addiction 8s