So, by now everyone knows everything there is to know about the iPhone 2, so I don’t have much to add. I thought I’d mention how disappointed I am with it though.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, 3G is a big deal, and GPS is nice, but really… is that it?

The thing is, I don’t even know what I was hoping for; it just wasn’t this: the device that should have launched a year ago. I mean, they didn’t even up the storage to sweeten the deal.

Obviously, I’ll be getting one, due to the device’s only really compelling new feature: its price. O2’s somewhat aggressive pricing means that I can upgrade to one with double the storage and a better data connection for a scant £60, which, I suppose, is nothing to be complaining about.

In fact, maybe it’s churlish to be complaining at all; the iPhone was already a very desirable device – I certainly have yet to regret getting mine, even with only 8GB storage and 2G data – and increasing the spec at all while lowering the price isn’t something you’d usually complain about.

I just can’t help feeling that if the most exciting new feature is a price reduction, that the hype might be a little misplaced this time round.

So it turns out that the MacBook Air’s battery is a single discrete block (albeit a very thin one) that runs across the bottom of much of the case, and it’s relatively easy for an end user to swap out. Some people are calling this good news, but to me it just means that there really is no reason bar cost for not making the thing user swappable in the first place. I guess it might have meant weakening the case, but I’m not convinced; this is Apple, after all — I’m sure they could have come up with a neat battery removal mechanism if they had the will (I’m thinking a covered slot on one side of the device that you slide the battery into — like a really big PCMCIA card). I guess they’re just experimenting to see if people are prepared to put up with it. Lets hope people don’t an Apple fix this in the next version.

In a surprise (to me) move, o2 have announced a major shift in their tariffs, including a significant change to their iPhone charges. This is great news for customers, as the inclusive minute and text allowances have generally been significantly increased.

Being on the £45/mo tariff, I gain the least; I only get double the inclusive minutes (up to 20 hours a month) now, the £35/mo plan has three times the inclusive minutes (up to 10 hours) and two and a half times the texts. The £55/mo tariff is gone, replaced by a totally over-the-top £75/mo one that I, honestly, can’t see anyone going for. All tariffs continue to offer unlimited free data over GPRS, EDGE and WiFi (via The Cloud.)

It’s not likely to sell the iPhone to anyone who wasn’t convinced, but it’s done a lot to improve the customer satisfaction of at least one consumer.

Of all the announcements this year, this one is definitely the biggie (although arguably, not the most significant — the AppleTV could easily trump it in long-term industry impact.) Apple’s new ultraportable was the announcement everyone was waiting for, and it’s generated the most media buzz, most of it positive. There’s no denying the machine is desirable, one thing Apple know how to do is design, and the Air is impressive even by their standards. It’s also a pretty impressive feat of engineering; a 13.3” laptop, averaging about 1cm thick and weighing a just over 1.3kg that manages to squeeze in a 1.8GHz Core2 Duo, 2GB RAM and a full-size, backlit keyboard, as well as a screen as good as you’ll find on any laptop. Oh and the battery life is quoted at an extensive (for the size) 5 hours. It really is an impressive piece of work.

Obviously, to get the size down so far, a couple of compromises have been made; it lacks an optical drive (to mitigate that can mount one from a nearby desktop machine over WiFi — a neat trick, but I wonder how fast the access will be,) has no speakers and sports a redesigned, smaller power connector, probably making the device incompatible with any existing MacBook adaptors you may have.

The basic model comes in at £1200, which isn’t excessive for a machine like this. It’s obviously much more expensive than the current crop of ultraportables from the like of Asus, and Packard Bell, but that’s not really the market segment it fits into. This isn’t a low powered palmtop, running a pared down Linux distro on A 500MHz via chip; it’s a full-spec PC squeezed into an ultraportable notebook form-factor. The 12” Vaios and Thinkpads are this device’s competition, and in that context, the price looks fairly competitive.

But I wouldn’t buy one.

Why not? That’s a very good question. It looks great, it’s got all the features I care about, is incredibly lightweight, runs my favourite workstation OS, and fits comfortably into my acceptable laptop price-range. The problem is simply one of longevity. Apple consumer goods have been coming without replacable batteries for a while now, and I’ve always been more-or-less OK with that because iPods and iPhones, at a couple of hundred quid, pretty much fall into the “replace every couple of years” price bracket anyway. Is that because I have more money than sense? Quite possibly, but when we’re talking about what qualifies as disposable technology, even I draw the line somewhere significantly south of a £1200 (or more) laptop.

It’s a shame; in so many ways, this would be the perfect laptop for me, but I can really see this really hurting its sales badly — I just can’t imagine anyone parting with that much money for something that’s only going to last as long as its battery. I know I won’t.

Update: OK — so it turns out that Apple will replace the battery for $130 (US, so I guess about £80.) That’s the cost of the battery, so fitting is effectively free. Also, a commenter called Andrew on Engadget pointed out that there’s almost certainly no discrete battery to be replaced; in order to get the thing as thin as that, they’ve likely spread the battery out across the whole inside of the case; everywhere there was a bit of space will have a battery cell in it.

So, maybe the decision was a genuine compromise, rather than a rip-off, and it looks like Apple have made the commitment to make sure people canget a new battery at low-ish cost, but I don’t think this really changes my opinion. People like the flexibility of swapping batteries out, they like the feeling of security of having a spare. Personally, I just wouldn’t be comfortable knowing that my ability to replace a dying battery is dependant on a third party continuing to offer a service that they’re only offering out of good-will in the first place.

Not as bad as I first thought then. But still a stopper for me, and, I imagine, for a lot of other people as well. In a way, it’s even more of a shame if they have a good reason for it not being replaceable; it means that the product just isn’t viable, rather than has been spoiled by a misguided attempt to upsell.

Rumours about an Apple “tablet-PC” have been pretty pervasive for the past few years, so I always take them with a pinch of salt, but this one sounds almost credible. I actually don’t know if I want this to be true or not; one the one hand, I’m certain Apple wouldn’t release it unless it worked (good handwriting recognition, decent battery life, a window-manager that feels natural with a touchscreen,) but on the other hand, I don’t see how there’s any way I’d resist buying such a thing, and it would be bound to be expensive.

Apple have finally announced plans to allow third party developers to develop for their iPhone platform, bringing the device one step closer to the smartphone it always wanted to be.

If the quality of shareware and freeware available for the Mac platform is anything to go by, this should lead to a plethora of high-quality, reasonably-priced add-ons for the phone, which should really increase it’s appeal to the more tech-savy consumer.

Personally, this combined with actually having seen one the other week is probably enough to sell me one. Now all I need to do is find the money, and convince o2 to let me out of my existing contract early…

Hey, it could happen!

So, it looks like the upcoming firmware upgrade turns unlocked iPhones into bricks. Well, that’s the risk you take when you install unauthorised patches to a device’s firmware; it’s always a dangerous thing to do, and you can’t really expect Apple to pick up the pieces for you when it goes wrong. What does really get to me, though, is the attitude to unlocking your phone; Steve Jobs is on the record as saying “It’s a constant cat and mouse game” against the people who want to do so. OK, what the f*ck has it got to do with him what someone does with their phone once they’ve bought it. Really? All these people want to do is use the thing (for which he’s already got his money) on a different carrier to AT&T. Hell, to get the phone, they’ve already signed up for an AT&T contract (or someone has,) so who’s really losing out?

This attitude that big business has is really, really starting to get to me. Why shouldn’t I mod the firmware in my phone, once I’ve paid for it, to be able to use it on my network of choice? No, forget that, why should I have to? Why can’t I buy an xbox game in the US and play it on my xbox here in the UK? Why should I have to re-buy all my DVDs just because I move to another country and can’t get a region 2 player? Why do I have to worry every time I buy a CD whether it’s going to consent to be put on my iPod?

Where do these big companies get off telling us, the consumers, what we’re allowed to do with things that we have already bought and paid for? It’s utterly out of line, and it’s worrying just how accepted a part of modern life it’s become. Something has to change. It’s time we collectively remembered that without our money, these companies, who presume to control our lives, have no income and no existence. Fundamentally, they only get away with it because we let them. Isn’t it time we didn’t?

Apple announced an entire new line of iPods at yesterday’s keynote. Asside from redesigning the Shuffle and the Nano, and doubling the capacity of the standard iPod (now called the “iPod Classic”,) the really exciting news was the announcement of the much anticipated iPod Touch, which is effectively an iPhone with more storage and without the, well, phone.

Now I have to say it’s a very sexy device indeed; it’s got a big screen, a new UI and it looks gorgeous, but there’s no way on earth I’d buy one. Why? It’s got a maximum storage of 16GB, that’s why. It’s a move I just can’t understand. Why on Earth, would they give what is clearly their new flagship iPod 10% of the storage of the old-style one? Why would they give a device that is clearly intended for video playback less room than I need to store all my music, never mind something more to put some movies in? It’s a real shame, too. I have no intention of buying an iPhone – not unless it’s a lot cheaper in the UK than the US – and the prospect of an iPod that could play movies well, and be used as a handy wifi web browser is quite appealing, but only if it also meets all my requirements for a music player, and paramount amongst those requirements is that is simply must have enough storage for my music.

At the same time, the iPod classic has just too muchspace. Not that that’s any bad thing, and it’s the iPod I’d be looking at getting if mine were to break, but given that my current model, with 100GB less space, has enough room for my music and then some, there’s just no point upgrading there either.