Ingensys

THE ultimate iphone App

Google mobile search was launched for iphone a while back and provided a nice interface to access google and google apps for your domain from an iPhone - however, as per some Youtube videos, a new voice search has been released on the Apple App store. This is absolutely amazing, you switch on the voice search in the applicaition and then simply put the iphone to your ear and wait for the bleep, you then say what you want to search on and that is then transcoded and sent to google and your search results displayed. Check out this video - this is an amazing application and is FREE

http://googlemac.blogspot.com/2008/11/just-say-it-searching-by-voice-with-new.html

Microsoft enters the cloud

And so Ray Ozzie has announced that Microsoft will deliver a cloud computing platform to sit alongside the new Windows 7. I am of course not going to do any 'ctrl alt delete' jokes, as Ray is most definitely one of my heroes, who I have had the pleasure to meet on more than one occasion.

However, I cant help but feel that after Vista, Office 2007, Exchange 2007 not making much of a splash and causing Microsoft a world of hurt, so much so MS have already announced Windows 7 so soon and the next office, clearly Google's model with Apps Engine has caught the attention of Richmond and Azure is born.

Check out the site: http://www.microsoft.com/azure/windowsazure.mspx

Interesting stuff on the how it works page graphics which show the 'coming soon' for Eclipse, Python et al - So my first question, how much infrastructure and how scalable is the realisation of the graphic above? Anyone? Thats a lot of intel boxes!

Google Apps Engine

I have had a few people ask me about the new 'page peel' effect on our home page and the logo behind. This is a division of Ingensys we have established which is dedicated to Google Enterprise solutions. We have been working with Google technology on both sides of the Atlantic for over 2 years now and have some great case studies of search and Google Apps success stories. If you want to check out our Google business, then go over to http://www.ir2g.net

One of the very cool things Google have recently introduced is the Google Apps engine. This is essentially a way to write web applications but on the Google infrastructure. So if you have a new application you want to creates, you write it and Google's cloud does the rest - a VERY cool way to do things as a delivery platform.

I have been looking at this closely and working on some ideas with some of my more geeky associates :-), although one of the popular solutions already running on Google Apps Engine is Wordle, this is really cool, point the app at a site or feed and it create a graphic cloud of words and tags, see below, this is the cloud for this blog - note to self, must write about more than just the iPhone I think!

Living with iPhone 2.1

My previous post had a little commentary on iPhone 2.0 software. Well as most of you know, Apple released 2.1 of the software along with the new ipods recently. Of course I upgraded on the day and have to say - what a great job!

Locate me now works (yeah) and it works on 2g and 3g phones. The Contacts is now usable, the text interface typing lag seems to have gone and call quality is excellent. I also noticed that my bluetooth connection to TomTom satnav now shows the iphone name correctly instead of having a strange character in it.

So a happy camper . . . with the software. It is however the actual 3g iphone that is not so great. After O2 swapping out the phone 4 times for a number of problems which I wont bore you with, I have a phone that the plastic back seems to creak sometimes. A swizz at the Apple support site names this a problem and that a visit to the Apple store should get a swap out - my only reservation with this, on the 4 previous phones, ALL of them had a problem with either a stuck pixel or dust under the screen. Indeed my current iphone has one stuck pixel - my 2g iPhone never did, so what to do!

Locate Me oh iPhone

It looks as though Apple are having a few issues with success. Firstly the issues with Mobile Me, although this seems to be getting fixed - I wont mention deleting an old .Mac Group though - come on it cant be that hard!

Secondly, the new iPhone 3G (And yes I have finally managed to get a 16gb one!) seems to be getting bad press for the quality of the 3G handling but apparently a software fix can sort all of this out . . . . .

And then my favourite, the Google Maps Locate Me. This was one of the killer features of the iphone, I used it on my 2g under firmware 1.14 all the time and it did a pretty good job. However, after upgrading my 2g iPhone to Firmware 2.0, the wheel just spins and it never finds me, unless on public wifi in city centres, Apple support forums have a huge thread about this with lots of people worldwide complaining - but still no answer, no information from Apple and suprizing I think, no real amounts of people kicking off about this on the internet, at least when I do a google for it!

After getting my new 3g Iphone complete with GPS, I of course wondered if this would fix the problem - short answer, no it doesnt. After a call to O2 to reset my MAC address for my free wifi, I quizzed them about this Locate Me issue - they have no knowledge of it and of course the stock 'Its an Apple application, so its for them to support it' answer came back - Nice.

So it begins, the classic, its not my problem, teflon shoulder attitude between hardware/handset manufacturer and Network provider - how disappointing. But more importantly, one of the main reasons for having an iPhone doesnt actually work - how can that be right?

Lotus Notes and iPhone sync, no really !

We all know by now that the new iPhone firmware 2 provides Exchange Activesync services for calendar, contacts and mail providing 'Blackberry' like over the air sync.

And so 140 + million Lotus Notes and Domino users wait with baited breath for a similar solution. To date we have . . . . Notes / Domino 8.5 with web based Domino Web Access Ultralite ...... No this is not yet another beat IBM up post, but instead a suggestion.

If you have an iphone with firmware 2.0 and you also are enlightened enough to have a Mac, then how about this for an idea:

Firstly, get yourself a Lotus Notes client on your mac replicating your Mail, Calendar and Contacts - its really very good, honestly!

Then go and get this:

http://www.pocketmac.com/product.php?id=20

This will sync your Lotus Notes Contacts and Calendar to the native OS X iCal and Address Book applications. At this point you could then use a cable and iTunes to sync your data to the iphone. But, if you want to go one step further though, how about getting yourself a free 60 day trial of Mobile Me from Apple, then setup your iphone for the Mobile Me 'push' services and let the magic begin (and yes its all working now).

All being well, you should see your Mac updating the Mobile Me 'cloud' and the changes pushing to your iphone. Add to this IMAP mail access from your Domino server, or perhaps forward your mail to your Mobile Me mail account and you have an over the air sync solution - well sort of.

Apple

iphone 2.0 Unlocked

Well that didnt take long really did it :-)

It only works on original iPhones with 2.0 firmware, the hardest thing seems to be getting the phone into the DFU recovery mode, put it all works just fine. The new firmware allows you to access and change the GPRS settings and it remembers them after a reboot, so ideal for using multi SIMS. Most excellent

How VERY disappointing, my O2 iphone upgrade experience

At 8 am this morning I received a SMS text message from O2 to inform me that today was the day I could upgrade on line and get my new iphone 3g which would be delivered on Friday morning to my front door.

This was the third text from O2 who had been keeping me up to date with the launch - so far so good, I have mentioned before that they seem pretty good to me, I always have a signal, get a good service and have very little cause for complaint with them as a network and have recommended them to friends and family.

I followed the link provided on the text on my computer and reached the very pretty upgrade online screen. I then entered my mobile number and also immediately received a text with my upgrade code, all working, nice Ajax technology on the website screen - most impressive . . . . . . . .

However, after some 8 hours, 11 different upgrade codes sent to my current iphone and also reaching the point of putting in my credit card to pay for the upgrade a painful 5 seperate times, the system of course just wasnt up to it and crashed each and every time. Even the failover system kept going down. A call to the O2 customer services team connected me after 23 minutes on hold to a very helpful but clearly battle worn representative who answered with the question 'hello are you trying to upgrade your iphone'.

Upon confirming I was, a dejected and obviously well verbally abused person answered that they had overwhelming response and the website couldn't cope - they couldn't answer if any of my attempts were successful, they didn't know if my credit card had been charged at all and couldn't give me any information about anything to do with the iphone 3g - not even if you could get a white 16gig. Finally, they couldn't take my order and they actually didn't have any more information. . . . .  I just didnt have the heart to get stroppy.

And so now the website shows that they are sold out and to go back on the 10th July.

Here I sit,  a loyal O2 customer who has paid for the 8gig iphone, then paid again to upgrade to the 16gig iphone and now is willing to pay yet again for the 3g 16gig iphone - but they wont take my order. Boo hoo.

More importantly than me not getting a nice new toy -  its 2008, this is possibly the biggest launch of a mobile phone, a hyped up phone which is only available to loyal iphone users, online. I cant even go to an O2 shop and give them my money for a new one.

O2 did everything right with the SMS marketing, getting the website together early with information -  and then completely let all that down by an inadequate web site which couldn't cope with the amount of hits they were obviously going to get. I would be very interested to hear what they actually had in place from an eCommerce perspective to cope with the demand - bottom line, I fear they didn't ramp up anything.

This I can kind of forgive, its one peak of demand that to make an expensive investment in ecommerce ramp up might not be commercially viable, but surely, its not rocket science to have a backup plan in place to enable the iphone customer service team to take upgrade requests manually - thats just simple, even if they take the details and confirm you are registered and will get one ASAP - that would be better than this quite frankly shambolic experience.

It is however, the harsh bottom line that really does come into play at this point. O2 have me for 18 months with my iphone contract, they have had my 8gig money, they have then had my 16gig money and they know full well that even though this has happened, I will pay for the 3G iphone as well. At this point I am suspecting that only a limited number of phones will be available at launch and regardless of the PR and marketing weasel words about rewarding loyal iphone customers - its new customers that O2 really want. Of course the really annoying part of this is, I have to pay the same amount for the new iPhone 3g as a 'brand new customer' and I have to sign a new 18 month contract just like a 'brand new customer' - So why can I only upgrade online with a site completely under engineered to cope?

UPDATE: It would seem that I am not alone . . . http://www.tuaw.com/2008/07/07/o2-iphone-pre-orders-not-going-well/

And

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/07/07/o2_creaks_under_strain_apparently_of_wouldbe_iphone_upgraders.html

BT Openzone on O2 iPhone?

So I received a nice text from O2 last night, telling me that they would soon send me some information on how to pre-register to get my new 3g iphone. They also provided some links to the O2 iphone pages on thee website. I had a quick click through and stopped at the tarriff page. Luriking in the small light grey print at the bottom of the page was this:

"Handset subject to availability. Connection subject to status, 18 month minimum term contract, credit check & direct debit. Calls/texts made in UK to standard UK landlines/mobiles only. Data usage whilst roaming not included. Unlimited Wi-Fi is available at any of the 9,500 Wi-Fi hotspots from our partners The Cloud and BT Openzone (available from 11 July 2008). Excessive usage policy and full terms apply."

So it looks like O2 will in addition to having the free wi-fi with The Cloud will also have wi-fi available from the 11th July with BT Openzone - making the total amount of hotspots 9,500 in the UK. From my perspective this is a big deal as I often come across many BT Openone hotspots but not many from the cloud - all of a sudden this new 3g iphone is looking more and more appealing (like it wasnt already!!).

Exchange and Apple Mail and Calendar entries

One of our On Demand cloud services 'Intercom' - is a hosted Exchange 2007 system. It is one of the first hosted Exchange 2007 solutions available and is being well received by customers.

I have one client we have worked with who use Macs :-) . . . they have No Microsoft software on the desktop but wanted to have Exchange on the back end for 'corporate' standard mail, and then to also have full Push features for iPhone 2.0.

With OS X Leopard 10.5.3 we have the Apple Address book syncing with Exchange we have the Apple Mail Client set up as an Exchange Account. On the whole the mail experience is pretty good and seems to work well.

In conjunction with Outlook Web Access, the mail and contacts are all in sync . . . Calendars however are another matter, but with iPhone 2.0 this will sync Over the Air with Exchange and then a cradle sync back to iCal (not ideal but it will work). Of course looking forward to Snow Leopard, Mail, Address book and iCal with ALL sync with Exchange 2007.

One issue however is this message that appears:

"Retrieval failed using IMAP4 protocol for message: 45484"

Exchange 2007 IMAP4 server failed to retrieve the following message:

You get this message, because you are trying to retrieve a message - on investigation, this is a calendar event from the Exchange 2007 server.

After some surfing around and of course ignoring the standard support answer of 'Yes, we dont support Apple Mail, either use Outlook or Enrourage' - I stumbled across this explanation on the Apple Support discussions:

" The Exchange 2007 server, does not store it in the Calendar folder anymore; that was the case in exchange 2003. Exchange 2003 creates MimeMessages with icalendar in Calendar folder. This is pretty standards conform. I noticed this during the development of a java client which retrieves the Calendar events from an exchange server over IMAP4.

I am afraid, only microsoft can help you by supporting it again or Apple should port MAPI to OS X or Mail should use Exhange 2007 Web Service interface. I have been searching for a java implementation of MAPI for a long time but I have already loosen the hope.

Exchange server uses two databases:

1. database is used for retrieving content - such as email from outside - and store it in the standards format.

2. one is used for MAPI clients such as Outlook. Whenever a MAPI client requests a content from the exchange server, it retrieves it from the first database, converts the content into own format saves it in this 2. database. This occures only one time. The next MAPI client requests on this content gets this already converted one.

I suggest, exchange server serves the IMAP4 requests from the 1. database. If you create an event with a MAPI client such as Outlook against an exchange 2007, the content will not be saved in the 1. database."

So bottom line - tough its broke and I suppose getting someone to step up and fix it would be low on a vendors maintenance fix - which is a shame. However, Apple and MS are obviously working together with Activesync for iPhone and Snow Leopard, surely something could be done to fix this - its only a calendar entry - nasty looking error though and calendar is pretty important to a business desktop . . . . . . .

Apple