iPhone tip, hacks and v2.0

Posted on By Mark Wilson

I haven’t written anything about the new 3G iPhone (except the iPhone version 2.0 software announcement) for a few reasons:

  1. I was on holiday when it was announced and have yet to catch up on all the coverage.
  2. I’m not sure if I need 3G or GPS (note the emphasis on need – want is an entirely different issue).
  3. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with my 1st generation phone if I do upgrade…

One of my friends has sold his v1.1.4 iPhone on eBay this week (unlocked) for a whopping £233 – not bad for a second-hand mobile handset – leaving him plenty of cash in the kitty for the upgrade (even if the old handset he’s using until he can get his hands on a new iPhone is driving him mad). Mine has a small scratch on the side (left by a grain of sand that got caught between the phone and the case it lives in) but is otherwise immaculate – it’s had a screen protector since day one and always lives in a case. Even so, I don’t think it will fetch as much as my friend’s – but hopefully it would be enough to cover the cost of the upgrade.

I did think of keeping the v1.1.4 iPhone as a spare handset – with the v2.0 software but then again I hope I’ll never need a spare iPhone. I could give it to my wife but she doesn’t like the iPhone form factor and the various extended family members that I’ve spoken to don’t seem that bothered either.

I also toyed with unlocking it and using with the SIM for my business cellphone but the two-dozen or so of my colleagues who have done this have been tracked down “asked” not to use the iPhone on the Vodafone
network (bizarre – as the Vodafone network must have many iPhones in use on it and I’m sure they don’t get upset about other unauthorised/untested handsets). Perhaps changing the IMEI to my officially sanctioned Nokia 6021 would work. But then again, maybe they will have another way of tracking me down and I’m sure that “asked” will become “instructed”.

Then there’s the whole issue of whether Apple or O2 will require me to have the old handset with me when I upgrade. I sure hope not, because selling mine before the price tanks on July 11 will make a lot of sense… so I’m considering taking it to the pawn shop (as long as I can get enough for it to cover the cost to upgrade) – and I can always buy it back if I need it!Hit the home button twice on an iPhone and access iPhone controls without unlocking the screen

So many choices! And I still don’t know if I will upgrade or not.

In any case, I wanted to share some iPhone tips – and one source is the excellent iPhone Hacks website – but I stumbled across a hidden feature myself a few days ago, completely by accident (this phone is running v1.1.4 and is not unlocked or jailbroken). I have a PIN code set on my phone, but that’s a real pain if I need to pause the iPod functionality on the phone for some reason (slide to unlock, enter the PIN code, then access the iPod controls). Then I found that, if I hit the home button twice in quick succession, it lets me access basic playback controls without unlocking the screen. Neat.

I hate long goodbyes

Posted on By Mark Wilson

Before I go any further, let me set one thing straight… for the majority of Microsoft’s enterprise customers, there are very few reasons why Windows XP should be deployed on new PCs in preference to Windows Vista.

Vista has now been available to enterprises for over a year and a half, has long since passed the first service pack release, and many of the initial difficulties are now resolved. It’s not perfect, but very few software products are. For that matter, neither is Windows XP (nor for that matter are Mac OS X or the various Linux distributions).

Sadly, for Microsoft, the general perception of Windows Vista is not a good one. Ask anybody who ran Vista from day 1 and they will have stories of the problems that they have had because ISVs and IHVs were too slow to update their applications and device drivers (hey, they only had 5 years notice…). But ask the same question from anybody who waited a few months and it’s a different story – Vista runs perfectly well on most modern PCs (and I don’t mean an exotic machine with a fantastic custom hardware specification – I mean pretty much any business PC purchased in the last few years, as long as it has enough memory). Unfortunately there is a saying that perception is reality.

So today is the last day that you can buy Windows XP. Except that it’s not really. In an open letter to Windows Customers entitled “An Update on the Windows Roadmap”, Bill Veghte (Senior Vice President for Online Services and Windows Business Group at Microsoft) explains that:

“It’s true that we will stop selling Windows XP as a retail packaged product and stop licensing it directly to major PC manufacturers. But customers who still need Windows XP will be able to get it.”

So you can get XP. But why would you? The simple fact is, that if you are looking to deploy a new Windows desktop in the next few months, then basing your plans on XP is building a problem for later.

In terms of the product cycle and future roadmap for Windows XP (Professional, 32-bit):

  • Support for Windows XP RTM and SP1/1A has already ended.
  • Support for Windows XP SP2 will end on 13 July 2010.
  • Although no official announcement has been made by Microsoft, it seems unlikely that there will be a fourth service pack for Windows XP. On that basic, mainstream support for Windows XP SP3 will end on 14 April 2009 and extended support (i.e. security patches only) will be available until 8 April 2014.

Some of my recent customers are just starting rollouts based on Windows XP SP2. By the time they have completed their rollouts, XP will be on extended support. And if they don’t move to SP3 soon, then they will be unsupported. In most cases the reason they are not considering Vista is application compatibility – in which case they should really be looking at application upgrades, or possibly using desktop/application/presentation virtualisation technologies – but why does a move to Vista have to be wholesale? A co-existence strategy involving managed diversity on the desktop is the way forward for many organisations.

So, I’ll finish up by repeating what I said at the head of this post:

“For the majority of Microsoft’s enterprise customers, there are very few reasons why Windows XP should be deployed on new PCs in preference to Windows Vista.”

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