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iOS4 on a 3G

Jul 14, 2010 Technology Leave a comment

I had a semi-long post written up about about running iOS4 on an iPhone 3G, talking about the new features that are both present and missing from the 3G model and other performance related issues. However, after spending a few weeks running it I think it’s safe to save myself all the effort and you all the reading and just say that it sucks.

If Apple removes certain features for performance related reasons, I totally believe and support them in doing so because everyone knows they are all about the user experience. If adding a wallpaper to the home screen placed so much of a strain on the hardware that the feature was removed (which is was) then my opinion is that the OS itself is probably too much for the hardware to handle. I have to say that my personal experience confirms this. I’ve loved my 3G from the beginning, but the last few weeks since the upgrade have been nothing but frustration. Everything has a delay, sometimes a LONG delay like 30 seconds or more. Sometimes it just seems to freeze up completely. You thought Notes was bad before? Trying to tweet when you get interrupted by a text message pop-up? Good luck with that. As I said earlier, Apple is all about user experience, and I’m honestly surprised that they approved iOS4 for the 3G because it’s just terrible. I imagine they did it just to avoid the backlash from the angry masses if they hadn’t.

My official conclusion is that I cannot recommend iOS4 in it’s current state (v4.0) for 3G hardware. I think the OS looks great and has tons of welcome new features, but 3G just doesn’t have the guts to run it. I know that the 3G is hardly the target device for iOS4, but hopefully one of the next iterations will include some performance enhancements that will help improve the experience on the 3G.

DragAMouse

Jun 19, 2010 Code, Technology Leave a comment

DragAMouse is my second iPhone App and it went on sale yesterday in the App Store.  I got the idea for this app from my 2 year old daughter who could operate the ‘slide to unlock’ function on my phone.  She wanted to play the games that the older kids were playing but those games were to complicated for her age.  She had fun anyway, but I thought it would be nice if there was a game more on her level.  Something that was simple to operate and didn’t involve complex logic or strategy.

This game is intended for toddlers and very young children.  I don’t expect that there would be any entertainment value whatsoever for older children or adults, it was just a simple concept designed only to entertain and occupy the little ones.

Random Rant

May 5, 2010 Random, Thoughts Leave a comment

Here’s a few random things that have been on my mind that don’t fit anywhere else, so I’ll just spit them out here.

Redbox I am done with you. It seemed like a good idea at first, but now I’ve had enough.  Waiting in line to rent a movie isn’t fun, but you know what’s worse? Waiting in line to return a movie.  My personal favorite is systematically starting at the Redbox closest to my house and working outward to find one that is not out of order and not “full” and not inside a store that is closed to be able to return my movie and then having to wait in line just to put the movie in the slot. It’s been fun but Netflix is my friend now.

SuperMediaStore is having a contest to give away an iPad.  The winner is to be chosen at random from all of the entries received during the month.  The winner for April still hasn’t been selected though because they received “over 13,000 entries in total! still sorting thru entries”. I wasn’t aware that a randomly selected drawing required any “sorting thru”, and the funny thing about computers is that they can select a random number pretty fast. It’s their contest and they can run it however they want, it just disturbs me as a programmer.  I wonder if I’ve disqualified myself from being the “random” winner with this post?

MegaTokyo I ordered a t-shirt 7 days ago and the order is still “processing”.  Really?

Milk If they can figure out exactly to the day when my milk will go bad, why are all of the above having so many problems?

Pork Whoever thought it was a good idea to use pigs for anything besides bacon was WRONG

Lost I’m watching this show for the first time and I’m currently in season 4.  I’m totally hooked and think the show is fantastic but seriously WHAT is going on?!