Posts by Ivan Headache

android usage

We keep seeing figures saying that Android 'outsells' the iPhone and that it is the dominant mobile system. However, when I look around, I don't see the phones to back up those figures.

I've done 2 train journeys today, one on the Northern Line and one on the District Line.

The NL train was not very busy and I could only see 5 phones during the journey from Finchley to Embankment, but 4 of those were iPhones (1 i5 and 3 i4/4s). On the District Line I could see 12 phones, 9 of them being actively used for texting, gaming or whatever - including 2 deaf guys using them to communicate). One was slightly obscured by a reflection in one of the glass panels and I couldn't make out what it was, but of the remaining 11, only 2 were not iPhones (and they were not the deaf guys).

The 4 and 4s is the commonest model iPhone (you can't tell them apart by just looking), the 5 is still a bit of a rarity on the tube.

I did see a chap with something that looked about the size of a 3.5inch Hard-drive clamped to his ear earlier in the day - he looked like an idiot.

Also in my web stats - Android still lags iOS. It's getting closer but it's not 75% in front like the 'sales figures' suggest it should be.

I wonder which is the cheaper option?

One of my clients recently returned from a holiday on St Helena (retracing family history).

Building an airport there is not an easy option as the island is a lot like Madeira in topography.

Also, there is not really a harbour that can be used to unload all the stuff that would be needed to do the onstruction. The mail boat anchors off-shore and the visitors have to be transdferred to small boats to get ashore - as does all the produce and goods arriving at the island.

She tells me that many of the islanders she spoke with were not actually in favour of the airport as they think it will destroy their unique way of life.

Moving the cable and setting up a data centre on the island could be a cheaper (and potentially more profitable) option.

Is Starbucks in the UK Starbucks?

Or is it some other company trading as Starbucks?

If it is the same company, why does it have to pay IP royalties to itself?

Surely there is a loop-hole that can be closed fairly easily.

During the 'trial', I found it quite amusing when the Strabucks man was asked if the coffee ever went to Switzerland before it came here.

I wonder if the Starbucks coffee that is sold in Costco ever went through the same shenanigans - or does Costco just ship it over from the US like the other coffees they sell.

I don't recollect having used a Starbucks now for about 5 years - there are better coffe shops everywhere.

The pessimist in me

can't see how this would work for engineering models.

For instance. With current plastic 3d printers you can make working differential gears in one go (i.e an input shaft, 2 output shafts and a case - you don't have to assemble the parts afterwards).

I like the 3d maps though.

Interesting

Two weeks ago I had 2 of these within about 20 minutes of each other.

What was particularly interesting was that the street shown in the text part of the message was less than half a mile from where I was in Pimlico. Could it be that some other app in my phone had sent my location to the spammers and they then produced me a tailor-made message?

The fact that I was on a bus and the parking cost was something like 30p told me that they were less than kosher messages. ( the attachment was labled 'your parking history' or words similar.)

Unique?

Earlier on someone mentioned the various ways your Tesco club card can work. One thing they forgot to incude was that it also rewards you with vouchers - either through the post or at the checkout when you get your receipt.

Similarly Homebaase did it with their spend and save card (until they opted for Nectar - and that, I'm fairly sure was prior to 2007)

I can't see that this patent is valid at all.

I also remember reading (quite some time ago - it might have been here or in some retail mag I was reading) that Safeway (remember them? - now Morrison) had developed (or were about to deploy) a system of promoting products previously bought by a customer as they wheeled their trolley past the said item in the store.

Safeway were one of the first to use hand-help self scanning devices so that you scanned each item as you put it in the trolley, the display gave you a running total and at the end you plugged it into a device which printed your bill and took your money. It knew who you were because you used a personal card to obtain the device as you went into the store. The idea was that the device knew where things were in the store (they could use that in Tesco - I can never find things) so as you passed an item you had previously bought (particularly if it knew that you had bought lots of them over the year (like pot-noodles) it would warn you of a special offer on that item that wasn't actually shown on the shelf pricing label - i.e. a personal special offer.

I might be making it up but I don't think I am.

"It's not at all accurate"

Lewis. I beg to differ.

I have posted before about the remarkable accuracy of the iPod Touch running iOS5 without any GPS.

Four years ago, my iPod could differentiate between me being on one side of a road or the other.

Particularly in the Bloomsbury-Kings Cross-Euston area of London

It also worked well in Spain also the accuracy was about 80 metres or so as apposed to the 5-15 metres I was getting in London.

Blanket statements are all very well if they are true.

Your statement isn't.

Looks awfully like the clocks

in Canary Wharf - except that to avoid infringing the SSB design they've put a number 4 digit on the face.

My god Roger!

You need to have a lie down.

But?

"HTC originally accused Apple of eight patent infringements but that has been whittled down to two in the past year. Both are for data transmission in wireless devices."

But haven't Apple (and every other computer manufacturer) been transmitting data in wireless devices for the last 13 years or so?

One thing that was missing.

It would be interesting to see what the ratio of PC OS systems was with the various Phones.

In my line of work I don't come across many PC users so all my clients will invariably have iPhone or iPads (not all but the vast majority)

My brother (who is an out and out windows man) has an iphone and a ipad - but he's the only one I know.

I would hazard a guess that all the linux users are Android users - but what do I know?

If a gunman walked into my local cinema without a mask

he would be recorded on the anti-piracy video that monitors the audience.

I would be on the floor.