Latest Articles on Technology
Is the Magic Mouse the Ultimate Mouse?
Today I got the chance to have a play with the new Apple Magic Mouse. Released earlier this week as part of the Apple hardware refresh, the Magic Mouse introduces gesture technology to the mouse, which was previously only found on the MacBook and iPhone.
So what does this mean for the user?
First impressions are the lack of buttons. While it’s predecessor, the Mighty Mouse, didn’t have visible left and right mouse buttons, there was the tiny scroll ball built into the top casing and the pinch buttons on the side.
With the Magic Mouse there is nothing, just a smooth curved back. But don’t let that fool you as this mouse is still a two button mouse and supports scrolling. The clever part is in the software which analyses the finger movements over the top of the mouse and translates them into actions, such as left or right click.
Its clever enough to understand the difference between a click and you laying your hand on top of the mouse. The scroll wheel is replaced by dragging your finger across the top of the mouse and just like the trackpad on the Unibody Macbook, the Magic Mouse will support 360 degree scrolling.
A nice touch is that the scrolling can be set to work relative to your finger speed. So if you want to slowly scroll down the document then a gentle stroke is all you need. If…
Initial thoughts on the iPhone 3G
I’ve been using the iPhone 3G for a couple of weeks and thought now would be a good time to share my initial thoughts on this device.
First impressions are very good. I’ve been using smartphones for a number of years, first starting on Windows Mobile devices and then falling in love with Blackberry’s. The interface on the iPhone is very intuitive, as you would expect from Apple. However you really do forget it’s a phone and feel like you are using a PDA, all be it a very powerful one. Is this as close as you will come to having laptop type functionality in the palm of your hand?
The new functionality such as 3G and GPS work really well although are pretty battery hungry, more on that later. The keyboard is responsive and the intelligent software which tracks what you type and suggests corrections does work really well and gets better with time. It is possible to type with two thumbs, as you will see from the video demonstration on the Apple website, however for people me with large thumbs this can be problematic.
There are a couple of things I miss from my Blackberry. The first is the concept of an Outbox for SMS. As you will see from the blog I do a lot of mountain based sports and as such can be out of network signal for long periods of times. Its useful to be able to respond to texts knowing that your phone will…
iphone 3G on the way
Just got official confirmation from O2 that I am one of the lucky few to be taking delivery of a new iphone 3G tomorrow.
As a user of Windows smartphones and Blackberrys for a number of years I have been mighty impressed with what I have seen of the iphone and the introduction of the new 3G version looks like it will definately take the smartphone market by storm. With 200 thousnd people expressing interest through 02 following Apple’s announcement it looks like the iphone will be at the top of most peoples Christmas lists this year.
I’ll post more once it has arrived with first impressions etc.
Page 1 of 1 pages
