How to get your free iPhone 4 case

Ever since Apple announced at a press conference recently that it was giving away free bumpers for iPhone 4 owners, I've wondered how this was actually going to take place. Do you order one from the Apple website? Call in at an Apple store? Well, this morning I got an email from Apple notifying me that I could apply for a free iPhone 4 case. You do it using an app on the iTunes store. Go to the App Store on your iPhone and search for 'iPhone case'. You'll see the free app and you can install it on your phone.

Run it and it displays around half a dozen different cases from various suppliers. They are all similar, but there are slight variations, such as smokey black or clear, and so on. You can browse the different models, view some info on it and see a gallery showing how your iPhone will look with it on. It's quite nicely done and there is plenty of choice of models. You then select the one you want and it's ordered for you. Shipping estimates are from 3 weeks up to 8 weeks. There's likely to be a lot of orders placed for these, so get yours ordered asap or you'll end up at the back of the queue with an 8-week delivery.

Read More

iTunes store drives me nuts, but what's the alternative?

The iTunes store has some good features, but also some terrible ones that drive people nuts. For example, run iTunes on the Mac or PC and go to the App Store to look for some apps for your iPhone or iPod Touch. If you browse the apps, such as each category, the top free or paid, and so on, you'll find that there are no ratings. If thousands of people have given an app a 1-star rating then I don't want it. It's a dud. But you can't tell from the iTunes store unless you click on an app, wait for the page to load, then scroll down it to the ratings near the bottom. Clicking back and forth and scrolling trying to find an app with a half decent rating drives me nuts. Browsing on the iPhone/iPod Touch is actually slightly better because ratings are shown in in the app listings, so why are they not there in iTunes on the computer? That's not the only problem.

Browse through the top free apps and you'll find some that have terrible ratings, so how come they are in the top apps lists? Today Zombie Duck Hunt is the number 2 top free app. It got five stars from 107 people and one star from 539 people. If we say that three stars is an average rating then 136 people think it's above average and 671 think it's below average. So how is it number 2 in the top free app list? That's with the sort set to best-sellers. It's not sold, it's free, so does it mean most downloaded apps and not the best selling? That would make more sense because people might download it thinking that it's free, so I'll try it and even if it's rubbish it hasn't cost me anything. I personally don't download anything that has five times more people rating it a one star than five stars.

Go to the Top Grossing Apps list and down at number 20 is MyCarCheck (I'm using the UK iTunes store - your's might be different). MyCarCheck is free, so how is it on the top grossing list? Zombie Farm is down at 66 on the top grossing list too and it's another free app. So is Tap Fish at 69, Godfinger at 78 and others. Surely top grossing apps are the ones that are making the most money?

There are 200,000 apps in the app store, or so Apple tells us, but how many have you seen? You've probably browsed the top free and paid in each category, which is about 100 apps in 20 categories, so that's about 2,000 apps. This means there are 198,000 you haven't seen. That's a huge number, so where are they? How can you access them?

iTunes is a poor way to find apps for the iPhone and iPod Touch, but we're stuck with it. Apple really needs to improve the app store navigation and provide more and better ways to browse apps. I'm sick of seeing the same old apps in the top whatever lists and there are 198,000 somewhere that I can't find. Apps stay at the top because people can't find any others and they end up downloading what everyone else is downloading. This keeps the same apps on the top lists and is self perpetuating.

Sorting by downloads, rating, name, release date would help, but also historic data like the top downloads for each month would be good. New and recently updated lists would also be useful, as would editor's ratings.

Read More

New iPhone FaceTime ads, but have you used it?

The number of people with smartphones is a fraction of the total number of people with mobile phones. The number of people with iPhones is a fraction of the number of people with smartphones. The number of people with iPhone 4s is a fraction of the number of people with iPhones. The number of people with iPhone 4s that are currently connected to a Wi-Fi hotspot is a fraction of the number of people with iPhone 4s. And the number of people that you actually want to speak to face to face via a video call is a fraction of that. A fraction of a fraction of a fraction of... well, you get the idea. Is it any wonder that I've have my iPhone 4 nearly three weeks and haven't yet made a single FaceTime call?

FaceTime is brilliant - when it works. The problem is that it only works in very specific circumstances and you virtually have to pre-arrange it. It's purely an iPhone 4 to iPhone 4 application and even then it only works when you are connected to the internet via Wi-Fi. So you have to make sure that the person you want to speak to has bought an iPhone 4 and they are on Wi-Fi at the exact time that you want to call them via FaceTime.

Getting people to buy iPhone 4s isn't easy given that they are one of the most expensive mobile phones available. Some people can't afford it and others don't want to spend that much on a phone. Even if they do buy one, the chances are that when you call them they won't be on Wi-Fi when you call them. If only Apple had chosen an open standard that was on most, if not all smartphones, and it worked over 3G, it would be much more usable. Maybe on a future iPhone FaceTime will work on 3G, but half the time I don't have a 3G signal either.

Adverts promoting FaceTime on the iPhone 4 are on prime time TV right now and four new ads have just been launched, so Apple is pushing it hard. It has too push it like crazy because FaceTime will only be really useful when large numbers of people have FaceTime-capable phones.

I'm not criticising Apple here and the problem is an old one. When you invent a communication technology, it only works when everyone has it. For example, when Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone it was completely useless. After all, who would he call since he was the only person in the world that had a telephone? It was only years later that the telephone actually became useful.

FaceTime is in the same boat and right now it's useless. Not because it's a bad idea, but because so few people have it. In a few years time we might all be using it on a daily basis to talk to everyone. Right now though, it's the most publicised feature of the iPhone, but the least used.

Read More