Free Microsoft Office and not a torrent in site!

As discussed on display-block the next edition of Microsoft Office could be free… Well ad funded.

Some have mocked that no one would use a version of office with embedded ads but I think it could work.

There will always be some people that want to use office but will never pay for it. It’s fairly expensive and so is a massive barrier to some users purchasing it. By making a free addition - even if it has embedded ads it means that users will be given the option to legitimately use the software without paying a dime. The corporate users that formerly paid for the software won’t want to put up with the ads and so will still pay the premium price so Microsoft will not lose much sales from this. However, those that formerly priated or used open source alternatives may be tempted to give the ad funded version a run and if the ads aren’t too intrusive keep it.

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New Facebook UI - will apps make a comeback

The last facebook re-design saved it from becoming a mess like MySpace was a the time. Users had too much control of their profile pages resulting in no consistency from page to page and over cluttered and annoying pages. Third party Apps ruled and dominated users profiles and spammed everyone with their activity.

The re-design buried the apps and restricted profile customisation so that the design was cleaner, more consistent from page to page and generally a better place to be. It did however, mean all the hardwork developers had put into apps was going to waste as apps were harder to get to and less noticeable. A footer navigation to apps later was added which helped somewhat but was not that prominant.

The new design which most should be able to see today if not within the next couple of days makes further improvements to the general look and feel and apps resurface as a prominant homepage feature.

New FaceBook homepage UI (click to enlarge)

First thing to notice is that the main column has been tweaked with more imagery in rounded corner squares. Instead of “joe blogs” did XYZ we have the users profile pic along with it. The main column is just an updating news feed and feels a bit like Twitter - perhaps what Facebook were aiming for.

The right column has been re-purposed. Moving the alerts to the top of the news feed in the main column and introducing a highlights section which app developers will be pleased to know promotes apps as well as groups which has also been neglected due to their lack of prominance.

The left column lets you filter the items in the main news-feed so you can quickly show only updates related to your contact categories. For example you may use facebook for work and personal and so switching between work and friends categories helps you keep your updates seperate.  The left column also means the tabs on the main column can be done away with and are now part of the vertical nav on that side.

The status update field has been made more prominant and changed from what are you doing to what’s on your mind - opening it up to a wider range of discussions. With the status commenting that has proven popular this is now more of a conversation starter than a an Instant Messanger type “I’m at lunch” message.

Overall the new design looks good, is cleaner and better laid out than facebook of old but still lets you get easy access to what’s hot on facebook whether it be friend updates or apps. It’s new filter is also a great help to users that use facebook for both business and pleasure or simply want to seperate friends and family.

I don’t expect as much of a backlash from users as the last big change but there are always some who won’t be happy - look out for the “petition facebook to undo their redesign” group

Thumbs up to Facebook and watch out Twitter.

New Look CNET UK

After editting virtually every style sheet on the site the new look CNET UK is finished and launched. The garish yellow is gone and replaced with a new black theme. Pages are also more consistent and laid out better.

CNET UK new look

Compared the old look:

Old CNET UK design

The project (code names Tiburon) brings the site more in line with the US version CNET.com and incorporates suggestions from users of the site. The team managed to launch the update which affected every page of the site with little to no down time.

More details and Feedback here:

http://crave.cnet.co.uk/software/0,39029471,49300666,00.htm

iPhone calls with your favourite headphones

At last! No longer will you be tied to using the standard iPhone headphones to listen to your music while your fantastic headphones remain unused. While the iPhone 3G allows you to use regular headphones to listen to music - if you are interrupted by a call you have to pull them out to chat. Things are about to change now that Monster have brought out the iSoniTalk Microphone headphone adapter for iPhone.

There is already NewerTech Mic Extender Cable for iphone but to be honest it looked a bit naff. Now this new adapter from Monster is available I am not stuck with either paying for overpriced headsets designed for iPhone or poor audio quality standard iPhone headsets. Although there is a negative review for this item on Amazon UK, Monster have a good rep for quality Audio/video cables so will give them a try.
Technorati Tags: iPhone, headsets, Monster

iPhone: The Phone of Choice for Super Heros (and Villans)

This weekend I spoted the iPhone being used by various celebrity heroes and villains. Seems to be all the rage:

Lord Vader still can’t get used to working without a stylus

Supergirl calls up Superman and complains about him swapping costumes again:

Batgirl checks where she parked the Batmobile on google maps:

Captain America watches videos of Wonder Woman on YouTube:

Batman likes that it comes in black (matches his outfit) but still keeps his in his pocket:

For a more serious look at iPhone 3G check the reviews at testfreaks.co.uk

The App store spells death to Jailbreaking the iPhone?

I’d love to say that the quality of Apps on the Apple App store is so superior to those made for jailbroken iPhones that no one would bother jailbreaking anymore. However, this is definitely not the case. While a few of the apps are quite polished a lot are on par with their jailbreak equivalents and many jailbreak apps will never make it to the Apps store as they will upset network providers or apple - e.g. the app that allows you to create multiple iTunes library’s on the phone so you can sync with more than one computer, or VoIP apps that allow you to make calls without getting charged a penny by your mobile provider.

Add to this the fact that most of the apps on via AppTapp on a jailbroken phone are free and it makes jailbreaking your new iPhone 3G very tempting. Some have already managed it as seen in this video:

So what are we waiting for - lets unlock our phones and get lots of free App goodness. BUT WAIT Jailbreaking was tolerated before and some of the jailbreak app developers have been welcomed on to the App store… however, before Apple had no competing service to rival the jailbreak apps and now they do. They will not want users to be able to choose between a free jailbreak app when they are trying to sell a similar App for $9.99 in the App Store.

So what will Apple do. Expect a lot tighter policing of iPhones. Regular updates closing loopholes that hackers have used to jailbreak, and even bricking of phones that it detects have been tampered with. While not illegal it will be a lot riskier jailbreaking your phone this time round.

Email - it’s the new SMS

With Mobile me up and running and Push working my iPhone 1 (the 3G just arrived and is syncing) Email is the new SMS/Text message. If your a heavy SMS user and burn through your free texts each month then having your most frequently texted buddies on Mobile me could save you. I know find it just as quick and easy to email my @me.com friends as texting them - plus I can add photo attachments. It’s not quite picture messaging but it’s getting there.

Not too impressed by the me.com site though. Some featurs appear to be broken in Firefox 3 such as the ability to add things to the calendar. Other browsers are greated with a message advising them to use Safari or Firefox as Apple can’t be bothered to support them. But rather than saying they can’t be bothered to make the effort that us web developers have to to support IE and others they simply say the features are too flashy for your browser and blame IE for not supporting modern web standards properly. I wish I could do that - if enough sites did do that rather than spend hours or days working to make IE happy or removing features because they cannot be supported in IE6 then maybe those users might upgrade to Firefox and save me having to support IE.

Anyway - back to enjoying 16gb of iPhone 3G goodness. If you haven’t managed to get hold of one yet don’t panic and pay mad fees for them on ebay - more are coming and their is no rush - their is hardly any decent apps on the App store yet.

iPhone disappointment continues - Delivery Fail

Looks like between O2 and DHL they have mis-routed my parcel. It’s in Dartford instead of Vauxhall and so I have been told I have to wait until Monday for it. Not impressed.

I will be trying to collect from the depo but I won’t hold my breath.

Apple Store Activation FAIL

It appears that UK iPhones require a PC to activate so the Apple store ran into trouble on today’s launch as all their systems were running on Mac and couldn’t activate the phones.
LMAO.

Full story here

O2 loses iPhone 3G order

After both my brother and I received a confirmation email from O2 for our iPhone order we were both happy and expecting delivery of our phones today.

It seems a confirmation email is not enough. Concerned that I had received a follow up email confirming dispatch of my phone and he had not he called O2 today. Despite his confirmation email they explained they had no record of his order and they were out of stock so couldn’t help him! He now joining the queues outside an O2 store somewhere.

I double checked tracking on my order and it still shows my phone has been dispatched and picked up by DHL at 12:15 yesterday and it has reached Dartford at 6:21 this morning so fingers crossed.