iPod Touch 2.0 Software

Not having the luxury of an iPhone (and unlikely to get one anytime soon) I decided to upgrade my iPod Touch to the latest version of software. I could make the usual gripes about Apple persecuting early adopters (you get the apps I bought in January for £10 free with this £6 upgrade) but it seems to be par for the course. Anyway, the download and upgrade went without a hitch but there wasn't a whole heck of a lot to see other than the App Store. So does the App Store make a difference? You'd better believe it! A quick look through the apps available begins to give you an insight into what the iPod Touch (and iPhone) could become. I downloaded a few free and paid apps to try things out. I haven't really been able to put any of these through their paces yet but I'll report back on what I find:

Advent (free) - The Collossal Cave text adventure (for those who remember it)
eReader (free) - an eBook reader linked to eReader.com
Evernote (free) - the iPod client for Evernote
OmniFocus (£11.99) - a GTD application
Remote (free) - a remote control for iTunes
Sketches (£3.49) - a drawing app
Super Monkey Ball (£5.99) - I had to get a game didn't I?
Talking French Phrasebook (free) - I'm going to France later in the year...

First iTunes Movie Rental

So now that we poor (in the sense of timing and selection but not pricing!) relations in the UK have iTunes movie rentals I thought I should try it out. The selection isn't all that extensive as yet (and a number of movies I would have loved to rent are only available to buy) but I did managed to find one that we wanted to watch.

I downloaded the movie entirely before we started watching, as we had timeos , I can't comment on the select and start straight away approach. The film played flawlessly. The picture quality was fine on our 32 inch LCD and probably equivalent to standard DVD levels. I am disappointed that HD movies are only available on the AppleTV (which hacks off those of us with Mac Mini media centres!) but since our TV is only 720p it's not a huge issue.

I can't say that I thought the 24 hour limitation applied in the States would have been an issue for me (though friends with very small children have said quite the opposite) it was nice to see that we have 48 hours in which to finish watching the film.

So overall the experience was pretty good. It's convenient and it works (no taking back scratched DVDs!); however, the pricing could have been better thought out. As I've mentioned before we have been getting increasingly poor digital reception so are in the market to watch more rented movies. If only the movies were cheaper we would probably be chewing through the available selection at a rate of knots. But with the pricing equivalent to DVD rentals (and without any access to special features etc.) there is a psychological barrier there - it just seems too expensive. If it was 99p for back catalogue films (of which they have plenty - which are showing for free on broadcast TV) I'd probably not worry about paying in order to get the convenience but at £2.49 I can't justify it.

Anyway, overall a good experience but the selection needs massive improvement, the pricing could be better and when are we going to be able to rent TV shows?

PicLens - 3D Image Viewer

I spotted PicLens earlier today. It's a Firefox plug-in which allows you to browse images on appropriately enabled sites. The 3D wall of images is brilliant and has to be seen to get the effect. Currently only a few sites are enabled but they include some of the main ones you'd probably use it on anyway - flickr, picasa, youtube, google and yahoo image searches along with the major social networks. It's a great way to browse image and video sites on the web!

There are versions for IE and Safari too.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

It was with a little trepidation that I took my better half along to see the latest instalment of of the Indy franchise, the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I had really enjoyed the first three movies and was concerned that the fourth would be disappointing. I needn't have worried as, whilst it's not the best of the movies, it makes a good showing.

It's been set some time after the others, which fits nicely with Harrison Ford's age, but it does mean that the Nazi's have gone and it's the Reds that are the opposition. Cate Blanchett is a little disappointing as the main baddie but the others make a good fist of it and, whilst a couple of the set pieces are pushing things (even for pulp), the overall effect is very entertaining.

If you set your expectations at an appropriate level it's a fun way to pass a couple of hours.

Skitch

I've been trying out a useful little app called Skitch. Essentially it's a screen capture tool combined with a light drawing package backed up by a web based sharing service.

It's very easy to use and I've found it coming in handy more and more as capturing elements of the screen is simplicity itself and you can easily annotate them and simply drag them off to the desktop to use elsewhere or post them to the web and send people the link.

It's currently in beta but I haven't had any stability problems with it so I'd suggest giving it a try.

Delicious Library

I spotted this app when I was trawling the usual Mac news sites (TUAW, MacWorld etc.) and thought it looked interesting. So I downloaded the trial version to check it out.

The app allows you to catalogue your movies, books, gadgets and the like which plays right to my latent OCD tendencies. It has a built in barcode scanner which can use your iSight camera (not for me though as I have a Mac Mini - Apple when are you going to bring the standalone iSight back?) but also allows text entry etc. and then searches Amazon to bring up loads of information regarding the item. The interface is the usual iTunesy type but with a representation of a bookshelf with the items on it (there are some nice graphical touches with how it drops in the cover art when you add an item and it "burns" it when you delete one). It can also read the title back to you when you add items.

All in all it does what I was trying to sort out on a database but in a much better, easier and quicker way and when I've finished I'll not only have a searchable catalogue of my stuff but also be able to track it when I lend it out and make backups for insurance purposes. Excellent.

Can we wait until 2012?

No I'm not referring to the Olympics but rather the digital switch-over here in the South East. Currently our digital reception is often appalling and I'm not convinced anything will be done about it until the switch-over - of course they might still not do anything then either! At least with an analogue signal the program may be grainy or snowy but you can still watch it. WIth digital it gets to a certain point and you simply have to give up or go mad. It's been happening pretty often lately something to do with good weather I suspect - of course it isn't great in a lot of weather conditions!

I'm starting to think quite carefully about FreeSat but, of course, that would mean trying to find a way of getting recordings onto the media centre - which is often a problem from satellite - may be FreeSat will be better? I'm not holding my breath.