iPhone 3G reviews – useful sites
Just a quick post today: I’ve seen a couple of pages which may be of use for learning a little more about the new iPhone 3G and also accessories.
Appleinsider have a great post here with some good pictures and some nice detail.
I’ve also found this superb site called testfreaks which collates all sorts of reviews in one place (saving a load of time and hassle). They have a section for the iPhone 3G here – click – well worth a look.
In terms of my own experience, the software is STILL laggy, but does seem to speed up every now and again. I have had no crashes or bad experiences with the apps I have installed, but I have not managed to get the GPS working. Not one bit. I need to do some thorough testing, because if it is faulty, it is going back pronto!
Featured on the Ribbit Blog
Well I never! I’ve been featured on the Ribbit Blog. They did actually let me know I was going to get a mention, and to be fair, there communication has been excellent, and through twitter 
Now I am really looking forward to using amphibian! Just to clarify, developers can get started now, but no live apps yet.
Toms Shoes – a unique marketing success story
I’ve just picked this up via my morning feeds and I am SO impressed.
Toms Shoes are a company who have been around for only 2 years. They have a very simple message:
Buy a pair of our shoes, and we give a pair to someone who really needs a pair.
The company was set up by Blake Mycoskie. He was a former contestant of “The Amazing Race” who was inspired by the low-cost alpargatas (espadrille-type shoes) during a trip to Argentina, where he saw people who could not even afford the very basic shoes.
Why has Toms Shoes impressed me?
Number one – a superb cause – people really do take this to heart, and what a great way to promote and sell a product when you know you are doing some good in the world too.
Number two – a quality product, a fun one, and not just one style, many styles (so more purchases!).
Number 3 – great brand, which is telling a story – people LOVE stories.
Number 4 – great marketing – lots of viral potential, loads of evangelists who spread the word, and the big one.
Being unique. Standing out and being noticed, doing something different, which also happens to be great.
I wonder if they sell them in the Uk yet? Time to hit up cuil, or maybe I will just stick with Google!
Not so cuil
This week has seen the launch of the new search engine by some ex-Googlers.
It’s called cuil. It was looking pretty cuil, until people started testing it. Techcrunch have a good post here, where cuil could not even find cuil in their SERP. Hmmm.
SEOMoz have another great post looking at a comparison between Microsoft Live search, Google, Yahoo! and cuil. Needless to say, the latter did not fair brilliantly. This is a massive case of too much promise and under-delivery. The thing a business needs to avoid above all costs.
They had quite a few things going for them – ex-Google staff (know what they are doing), in stealth mode, massive hype and PR in the blogosphere, but then went pear-shaped when people started using it. To be fair, they must have had some cojones to try and take on Google, the most succesful online company in history. So, they tried, and for now at least they failed.
Amphibian
I’ve blogged about a couple of things before, when I’ve actually said wow and it has made me think, “man, I need that!”.
Well today is another one of those days, and funnily enough, it is not npower who is doing this to me 
It is ‘Silicon Valley’s First Phone Company”, Ribbit, which has just been bought by our very own BT. Techcrunch have a good post here on the acquisition which has cost BT a cool $105 Million, but I honestly think it is money well spent.
So what is Ribbit?
Our platform enables developers to bring together the richness of voice calling and Web 2.0 experiences. With Ribbit, voice can become a rich feature that can be added to any application, on any device. Free from a traditional handset or the latest mobile phone, voice can now be delivered and received on multiple devices in multiple locations, across any network. It can be integrated, monetized and personalized using the Ribbit platform.
The best way to understand how powerful Ribbit is, is to check out the first application which is called amphibian.
amphibian looks amazing! I’m pretty staggered with how useful and intelligent it is. You know that feeling when you think, whoa! How an earth do they do that? It feeds my fascination with all things web!
With amphibian you can finally:
Manage your mobile voicemail like email on your computer and on your mobile phone.
Turn your voicemail into text to make voice messages sharable, searchable, and most importantly actionable.
Take and make mobile calls from any browser or web page – such as iGoogle, Facebook, and many more.
Experience Caller ID 2.0 – dip into the social web and know not just who is calling but what the caller has been doing.
I urge you to check out the amphibian page here and watch the demo movie – it shows how your mobile phone becomes completely integrated with the amphibian web app. What really impressed me is the fact that when someone calls (get this), it show up their caller details but will also show their latest flickr photos, blog posts, movies etc. Now THAT is impressive.
I’ve registered my interest and am now really looking forward to getting going with this. One of the coolest webapps I ever seen – I hope it launches soon, and well done BT!
mobileme Contacts disappearing
mobileme is certainly a massive PR disaster for the normally robust Apple.
UPDATE -it’s even made the BBC site today.
I’ve just suffered from the loss of all my contacts on my iPhone which is a slightly nervy experience! However, I have now solved this by following these instructions:
- Turn your iPhone or iPod touch off and then back on (if you did not already try this above).
- Turn syncing off for the affected data. From the home screen, tap Settings > Mail, Contacts, and Calendars, and then tap your MobileMe account. Move the slider for the data type that is causing you issues. Wait for confirmation that that data type has been disabled, then press Home. Confirm that the data has been deleted on your phone, and then turn syncing for that data type back on.
This is taken from this Apple support article and I can report that I did exactly this, and managed to get all the contacts to reappear. I would definitely also back up your address book and calenders, just to be sure.
