Lots of people are talking about product recalls or free bumpers (cases for the iPhone 4 that, because they stop direct contact between sweaty fingers and the phone’s antennae, stop the ‘reception issue’ from showing as much). However, my theory is quite different:

When you update the firmware on the iPhone you are given a great big End-User License Agreement (EULA) that no one ever reads. Ever. Yesterdays iOS 4.0.1 release will likely have said something along the lines of:

…by installing this iPhone software update you are hereby acknolwedging that there are no issues with the iPhone 4’s antennae and there is no reception issue. Ergo, you cannot sue us or complain any more. Ever. About anything. Love from Mr Jobs.

So, later today, when Mr Jobs stands up in front of the worlds media and blogosphere he will stand there all smug and say “Well, 4 million iPhone 4 users just updated to 4.0.1 and, by doing so and agreeing to my terms, have confirmed there are no issues. Please go home and relax. Good night.”

There you have it, how many times have you been told to read everything before you agree? Now you know why.

Regardless of the fact that she wouldn’t have time to carry out such a task, surely it is easier to teach the kids not to eat rabbit poo? However, I do feel that the governments insistence of ‘five-a-day’ of fruit and veg is solely to blame. The kids clearly think they are raisins.

In order to help, I have produced this handy guide:

Yesterday something special was released in the UK – Apple’s iPad. I’d love one but I simply can’t afford one. So, in homage to the day I was denied Return of The Jedi, I bought myself a 99 Flake to console myself. Some things just never change!

At the back end of 2008 I acquired an iPhone 3G through PocketGPSWorld – the idea being that it would be used once they started developing their iPhone App (it’s called CamerAlert, if you’re interested, and is available in the AppStore). It was a Pay As You Go so I only really used it for mobile internet and that was pretty much it. My T-Mobile contract then got expensive and, to be frank, the signal in my home village was shockingly bad with frequent drop-outs during calls etc. Many calls to technical support resulted in me being told that our local mast was overloaded and could not keep up with the number of users in the area (which explained why my wife’s mobile signal also did the same). As such I got my £35/month contract for £17.50/month for 15 of the 18 months I was contracted to. Early 2009, at the end of the 18 months, the signal had not improved and I was reluctant to pay full price. So I decided to get an O2 SIMplicity SIM card for £20/month with unlimited internet and a tonne of minutes and text’s. I’d been on O2 before getting the T-Mobile PDA so knew the signal was fine. I used this SIM card in the iPhone…

I hated it. Actually, genuinely hated it. I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was but I hated it. After a week or so if fiddling about with the iPhone I actually sussed out what it was – I simply couldn’t fiddle with it. OK, you can change a few settings, install apps from the AppStore etc BUT there were no little settings you could really fiddle with; you couldn’t, at that point, send MMS messages; there still isn’t any bluetooth file transfer… It bugged the hell out of me but for financial reasons I couldn’t (still can’t) afford a new phone or the cost of a more expensive contract with a ‘free’ phone. So I was stuck with the iPhone. A few generous friends offered to take it off my hands, but I needed it for work…

Gradually though, as I used it more and more and also used my MacBook Pro more and more I got used to the Apple way of things. Simplicity CAN be a good thing. It means things are less likely to go wrong as there are less variables that can be changed. I actually started to go from hating the iPhone to loving my iPhone – note the use of the word ‘my’, the more I used it, the more it became a part of me. I still use it as my main phone now, and actually like the simplicity of it all. It is probably the best UI I have used on a mobile phone – it’s easy to use, although not massively customisable, it works really, really well.

So, move on to the end of 2009 when I was given a T-Mobile G2 Touch (HTC Hero) Android phone – again for PocketGPSWorld.com app development. The default version runs Android 1.5 so some of the features are missing (such as bluetooth file transfer, text to speech etc) but, in general it’s a good phone with a lot of features. I should love this phone more than I do though. While it is great that it is highly customisable, the whole UI and user-experience is… how can I say… different. Perhaps I’ve been spoilt by the iPhone’s simplicity but I have to try hard to want to use the Android phone. It’s not that it’s bad in any way, it’s just not my iPhone. Had I not had my iPhone in between my WinMo phone and the Android phone I doubt I would have felt this way about it.

I do like using my Android phone, don’t get me wrong, but my whole outlook seems to have been changed in that I no longer wish to fiddle too much – I just want a phone that works and as simply as possible. There are some things I would like to see done differently in Android, but then again there are things I would dearly love to change on my iPhone too. I’m going to use my Hero for a while this time and see if my outlook changes again. I suspect though, like last time I tried, I’ll stick it out for 2 weeks then just need my iPhone back again! We’ll see – maybe I’m just addicted and I need to break the habit!

Wow, this is slightly weird. In 37 minutes I’ll be 30. I’m not one to moan about feeling old or having a crisis about it, it just seems weird to say I’m 30! Three-Oh. Thirty. Twenty-ten. However you say it, it still means I’ve been around for 3 full decades come midnight.

You know what’s funny though? My Mum’s “little baby” is 30, that means she’s somewhat older! So, because there are far more people who are older than me I’m not going to moan about being ‘old’. I’m still young at heart (don’t they all say that?!). My only moan is this:

I’ve got one grey hair for every year of my life. DAMMIT! I’m 30!!!

See you on the other side!

1984

2010

Anyway, if you’re interested here’s an excerpt:

“but god does it feel so good… to steal it all away from you now. and if you could then you know you would. cause god it just feels so… it just feels so good.”

i’m ashamed to say that, although i’m a believer in Jesus Christ and i claim him as my God, when i wrote those lyrics i wasn’t addressing him. i was using his name casually. in vain, to be blunt. if you know much about the Christian religion (which i’m not too fond of addressing my faith as), you’ll probably know that one of the ten commandments is “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord your God in vain”… it goes on to say, “…for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.” As a believer in Christ, that last part scares the hell out of me. i don’t want to be held accountable for being the cause of so many people using his name in vain. you don’t have to believe in what i believe and no one in Paramore is ever going to go around forcing our faith into people’s lives… but believer or not, i might have led some of ya’ll to believe that i take my saviour lightly. and i don’t.

Read the full post including the background for the song here: http://paramoreband.livejournal.com/31376.html

P: forgot to tell you i found an MS update the other day that adds DVD and ISO burning to WinXP. Installed it to old PC but not tried it yet..

M: cool

P: also Nero 9OEM for £3

M: i have win7 now. it’s the future
M: cos it’s a bigger number

P: sorry nero isn’t the update…
P: i’ve got 7 too but other PC is XP

M: though really win98 should be the best

P: i liked windows word 5

M: how come, right, my windows is windows xp but word tells me it’s 2003?

P: what version of word?

M: it’s windows xp
M: so it shoudl be word xp but it says word 2003
M: so does that mean i’m actually on windows 2003?

P: probably.
P: word XP was 2002

M: damn – my printer’s nt compatible with windows 2003

P: can’t you incrrease the gigabytes?

M: it needs windows USB – apparently won’t work without that version
M: i have 1gigibytes of memory – is that enough? will i run out of space?

P: how many photos do you have in words?

M: think most of them go in there – words is the one where it shows a small version of the pictures, isn’t it?
M: can i delete the small pictures from there as it’s only the full size versions i’m bothered about

P: why does my broadband not make my PC faster?

M: ah, i know this one
M: it depends how many other people are using facebook at the same time. you see it’s only “up to” 8megagigabytes
M: which means you won’t get that full amount – AND even if you DID get the full 8 your hard drive is 250gigabytes so the 8 won’t actually increase your current computer

P: ah so if i’m downloading a game how many emails can i recieve

M: i don’t think you can get emails while a game is downloading?

P: my friend said you can because of the width of the bands and stuff

M: it would probably give you a virus as the email would mix in with the game anyway.
M: i woldn’t risk it.
M: unless it was a really fast game
M: then you could download the game before you even had chance to log in to aol webmail

The sad thing is, a lot of the statements here are things we hear real people actually saying…