When the iPhone 4S was released last year many were impressed with Siri, the intelligent software assistant and knowledge navigator that is now one of the major differences between the iPhone 4 and 4S. With its witty responses and clever comebacks, Siri initially received great praise. However as time has passed the cracks have begun to show and Siri now has major competition from Evi, an app for all iPhones and Androids costing as little as 69p from the app store. Unlike Siri, it is apparently substantially better at dealing with regional accents and works on the iPad. Almost 200,000 Apple iPhone users have downloaded Evi since its release date on 23^rd January. Even though Evi was approved by Apple, the terms & conditions of the App store do state any apps that emerge in the market that are considerably similar to an existing Apple app must be removed. Evi has begun to concern Apple, so much so that Apple has given Evi a certain amount of time to change the look or they will pull Evi from the app store. It is believed by some that Apple’s main concern is that Evi is in fact too good.

Siri is an American based company, and for that reason US iPhone 4S users would find Siri more suitable than UK users. Despite this, due to the struggle Siri has faced in the UK with regional accents, True Knowledge, the natural search engine behind Evi have provided UK users with a more substantial personal assistant service.

Having tried both Siri and Evi I have found neither really answers my questions how I would have hoped. When asking for cinema times at VUE Westfields, neither Siri nor Evi are able to give me an answer. If I ask “do I need an umbrella today?” Siri replied “There’s no rain in the forecast for today,” and then gave me the full days weather forecast hour by hour. Evi was very similar and said, “ The weather where you are is black clouds with a temperature of 4 degrees Celsius, and later it will be white clouds.” It then gave the full days forecast for every 3 hours. Even though they both gave me the answer it did take more than 1 go for the voice recognition to understand exactly what I was saying. Let’s just say if I wanted to find out the weather forecast I wouldn’t waste me time with either Siri or Evi and just use good old-fashioned Google.

I’m not a runner – I see other people doing it, and think it looks like a good idea. I want to be fitter, healthier, more productive. The outside is always there isn’t it? You don’t need loads of kit, and there’s no hassle with planning, booking etc. Fancy a run: go for a run.

And then I try it. And running stops seeing like a good idea, and starts seeming like a really, really stupid idea. It’s not fun in any discernable way. Half an hour later, my lungs are on fire, my teeth hurt, and I’m wondering where the line between hypochondria and ignoring the symptoms of a heart attack are.

So it came as something of a shock on Monday to read uber-grouch Charlie Brooker’s article in The Guardian – couch potato extraordinaire.

I thought I could trust Charlie – he’d always help me scorn people who run. Them and The Daily Mail. But it seems he’s let me down.

“I confess: I have become a runner. I go running. I run. Like a runner. Which is what I have become. A running runner. Forgive me. Oh Christ. Forgive me.”

Not yet Charlie, no. You’ll have to earn that forgiveness.

So what got the self-confessed “un-sporty” Brooker pounding the pavements? The blame rests with the Get Running app (I assume this is the one he’s using, as it fits his description) which promises to get you from the couch to a 5 km run in 9 weeks, with ease.

A geeky bit of tech, that can make me healthier – now? Bookshelves around the world groan under the weight of get-fit-quick-books. Let’s be honest, their most efficient calorie burning period is with the poor postman who has deliver these tomes.

What caught my eye about this however, was the fact that Brooker seems to actively enjoy running now. Or at the very least, doesn’t enjoy not running, if you see what I mean. To be honest, could I run 5km now? Probably. Would I choose to? Nope. Would I repeat the exercise regularly? Not a chance. But I’d like to.

So I thought it’d make an interesting challenge; I’ll give it a go. Can an app change your life, as the reviews say? We’ll see. If this is the last blog post you hear from me on the matter, you can safely assume not in this case.

You don’t have to eavesdrop to know that mobile phone hacking is a hot topic. ditto’s tech lab is would like to issue a public service announcement, in how to avoid it happening to you.

“It’s not very difficult; anyone could do it,” says Jack Wraith, head of the Mobile Industry Crime Action Forum.

Mobile phones come with a default four-digit Pin. Providers expect and ask customers to change their pins, but very few do. Have you? The journalists and private investigators could ring the number and if the caller didn’t answer, they could enter a default pin and access the persons messages. This raises the question of whether the practice of entering a default pin number could even be considered as hacking?

Mobile network operators in the UK have made it harder for anyone except the customer to listen to their messages recently. But it still happens. So what can we do to prevent our messages being tapped into?

Change your pin. Mobile phone networks offer remote access to your mobile phone’s voicemail should you wish to check them using another line. For security, you need to ender a pin code before being able to listen to your messages. The default codes are the same across all phones, often 1234 or 0000. If this code isn’t changed your voicemails may be open to hacking.

It should be quick and easy to change the code. The process varies across networks; however most can be done by calling your voicemail and selecting the security menu.

This should prevent Rupert Murdoch receiving your messages before you!

These days, the release of new Apple products no longer generate the same wow factor they once did. The latest iterations of desktop computers or iPods follow the same design language that has been established for many years now. And though each new model is faster and slicker, the changes are hardly sensational.

The exception, however, is the iPhone, a device that sits in 6.4 million Americans’ pockets, and has sold over 100 millions units since its launch in 2007.

Here at ditto, the sound of a text message chime on an iPhone will send half the studio reaching for their pockets. It is a universally respected device that has changed the face of mobile technology. The iPhone is currently in its fourth generation. Over the original model we now have video, maps and GPS and the processing power that would shame a ’70s supercomputer.

A new iPhone, therefore, means new tech and the new must-have mobile device. The internet is a buzz with the release date of the 5, mostly leaked from Taiwan where Apple’s supply chain and manufacturing facilities reside. The consensus is production will begin mid-to late August and the final product will be available from late September. So what can we look forward to?

iPhone 5 will be cloud-based. We talked at the start of the month about Apple iCloud. This service will integrate iPhone 5 and the new mobile device operating system iOS 5. This will be a radical change in how we update our iPhones. Theoretically, no longer will you need to plug into iTunes and wait for a lengthy sync – it will all happen live, over the ether, as content is changed.

The design is pure speculation. Recent Apple patent applications have described having visual indicators and touch-sensitive buttons incorporated in the space around the iPhone screen. Engadget www.engadget.com state the iPhone 5 is set to be ‘completely redesigned.’ One certainty is that the new device will have a 4” screen since these are currently being manufactured.

As for specs and features, the 5 will certainly be an improvement on the already capable 4. 1080p HD support is fairly likely, building on the current 720p HD iPhone 4. A faster, possibly dual core processor and more memory will help with the graphical boost. It may also incorporate new NFC technology, which we previously mentioned, turning the 5 into a mobile wallet too.

The ditto crew, meanwhile, are waiting anxiously for their mobile contracts to expire and for upgrades to be available from September so they can get their hands on what will undoubtedly the most sensational Apple product this year.

Before the cloud and servers, before chips, dongles and usbs, and before the entire digital revolution, knowledge storage came in simpler form. The book. Remember them? I’ll admit to loving my gadgets – be it iphone/ipad/imac/macbook – and God only knows how much time I spend on them aggregated. But the truth is, nothing moves me, or has the emotional resonance of a book. The feel, the look, the weight, even the smell; glimpses of unknown the worlds they contain, and the journeys they can take you on. Remember that surge of memory when you uncover a much loved and thumbed copy of an old favourite? While they have the power to transport us, part of the beauty of a book is the chance of some kind of permanence – the promise that all we are and all we know needn’t disappear in time and dust, but can be saved, passed on, added to the store of human knowledge.

Living in London, we are lucky enough to have The British Library on our doorstep – housing over 150 million items, it is one of the biggest in the world. It also hosts regular exhibitions, which presently include The Treasures of the British Library, in the Sir John Ritblat Gallery. For the more bookish amongst you, this collection holds some real treats. Everything from the 1215 Magna Carta, to the original song lyrics to Help by the Beatles, in John Lennon’s own hand. From the Hebrew text The Golden Haggadah (c1320) to the original of Oscar Wilde’s last published work, The Ballad of Reading Gaol.

However, the most fascinating and emotive item, personally, was an original Gutenberg Bible. Aesthetically, it’s a beautiful, ornate object – something that was made with skill and passion, and with the presence of something that has the weight of ages on it. For me though, its what this pile of ink and paper represents; one of the most significant evolutions in the dissemination of information in the Western world, and something that shaped the way we think and think today.

Printed by Johannes Gutenberg, in Mainz, Germany in the 1450’s the Gutenberg Bible was the first major book printed with a movable type printing press. It marked the beginning of the Gutenberg revolution and the age of the printed book. The truism that information is power may seem clichéd now; however, the ability to not simply record a message, but reproduce it quickly, efficiently and relatively cheaply, transformed something at the core of how we now see our society. Control over access to information, knowledge and education fundamentally altered with the arrival of the printing press. An idea can always cross boundaries, but from that point onwards the speed with which an idea could reach critical mass steadily shrank. That single ability, of allowing an idea to travel, to reach people, and to grow into a movement would change forever the manner in which the many could be controlled by the few. If you’ve followed the role of social networking sites such as Twitter in the dissemination of information in Tunysia, Egypt, Iran, Libya et al, remember, those movements have their roots in the revolution of the printing press. So if you find yourself with a spare moment anywhere near Kings Cross, I’d urge you to go take a look at a true piece of history, the pre-digital cloud.

Cloud computing now has an Apple flavour.

Apple defines iCloud as, “so much more than a hard drive in the sky.” And from the ditto perspective, it really is. Cloud storage is not new. Here at ditto we use Amazon EC2 cloud service for storage and hosting; and myself and a handful of colleagues already subscribe to Me.com, Apple’s existing cloud service. It brings our documents home, gives us space to take our film and music on the move, it can even find your lost iPhone or iPad! Essentially however, it is a hard drive accessible from everywhere; However the process of pushing and pulling content is manual and laborious. Slow too, depending on your connection speed!

In the workplace, Cloud storage represents secure, offsite, accessible storage. Bringing technology that has generally only being used by business home, Apple are bringing cloud technology to your fingertips. With this move comes greater convenience and integration that only Apple can provide; As long as one subscribes to the package of devices!

iCloud is your content on every Apple platform that you own. Without wires and without manual transferring. It takes your music, videos and photos and shares it on all your devices. Your email, calendar and contacts are kept up to date over your iPhone and Laptop. And your documents are viewable on your iPad and desktop. This is all without management or syncing. iCloud works in the background to make sure all your content is accessible all your devices.

This is the cloud computing dream and is fully harnessing the technological potential. The magic here is using the power of cloud to tie devices together. This has always been a burden and the bane of multi-device users. The familiar, “Do you want to transfer you iTunes purchases,” messages should be a thing of the past. Apple’s touch is for all of this to happen seamlessly without management. This is a huge leap forward, toward a future of computing with little effort. ditto is excited and ready to jump in!

The iCloud service is free for iOS 5 and OSX Lion users from the end of June.

A recent article published on the Guardian caught my attention when it mentioned that advertisers in the US were paying around $100,000 (£62,000) a second for a slot during the Super Bowl. I was originally shocked by this figure when I first read the article until I took into the account the sheer size of the audience estimated at 130 million – $1,300 per person. Not bad though when you consider that the ads are just as anticipated as the game itself and is a great platform to boost a brand.

Super Bowl Sunday also helped to set another new record, this time in regards to number of tweets per second (TPS) being sent by Twitter users. At one of the final moments of the game 4,064 tweets were sent, the highest number of tweets sent in a single second during a sporting event.

Although that’s an impressive number of tweets, the most tweets in a single second still belongs to a one-second period that occurred directly after the most recent New year’s Eve celebration in Japan. At four seconds past midnight in Japan as 2011 began, Twitter users rang in the new year with a record: 6,939 TPS.This started me thinking – what else happens in a second? This is where it gets interesting, well at least for me. When Apple released the iPad in April 2010, they sold 3 million devices in 80 days. Equating to 1 iPad sold every 2 seconds. This rate is now speedy up.

It’s now estimated that c30 million Apps are being downloaded per day. That’s over 116 Apps per second. By the end of 2014, Gartner forecasts over 185 billion applications will have been downloaded from mobile app stores, since the launch of the first one in July 2008.

To-date over 10 billion apps have been downloaded through iTunes alone with an average of more than 60 apps downloaded for every iOS device sold. It’s therefore not really surprising that large companies already utilising the iPad as an enterprise tool include Dupont, JP Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo.

With the unparalleled speed of change in the tech, finance and media sectors, companies are realising that success depends of being able to respond to the market in seconds, not minutes or days. Any delay in informing, equipping and mobilising your teams and customers increases the likelihood of missing an opportunity, or even being beaten to one by a competitor. It’s now time we all start thinking in terms of seconds.

So it made total sense to us to find a way of making that happen. Which is how our platform Clarion came about – put simply it’s a way to deliver a message, be it marketing or meetings, across any device, instantly and globally. Yes it’s fun, and practical, and we love it, but the real point is that technology wise we have now reached the point where as individuals and businesses, we are expected to be instant. The revelation is, this really doesn’t have to be a chore – where some see the shrinking of time as overbearing, the power shifts to those who are prepared to embrace the speed of change. There is a new opportunity every second – they simply have to be grasped.

Nokia and Microsoft recently announced plans to form a broad strategic partnership that would use their complementary strengths and expertise to create a new global mobile ecosystem.

Nokia and Microsoft intend to jointly create market-leading mobile products and services designed to offer consumers, operators and developers unrivalled choice and opportunity. As each company would focus on its core competencies, the partnership would create the opportunity for rapid time to market execution. Additionally, Nokia and Microsoft plan to work together to integrate key assets and create completely new service offerings, while extending established products and services to new markets.
This is a very aggressive move by Nokia, and has sent a strong message of intent to the market from Stephen Elop, Nokia’s new President and CEO; the first non executive member of the board that is not from Finland.

We can analyse this partnership in a number of ways; it could very well be the first steps by Mr Elop in shaking up a company where engineering and innovation teams have been caught napping these past 3 years. Will he dare to move the headquarters of the biggest conglomerate and largest employer in Finland to the brighter and sunnier climes of Silicon Valley? Political hurdles will be a plenty on that front.

Such an audacious move would definitely make the markets stand up and take notice; there is general agreement that something needs to be done to wake the sleeping giant that has been lacking ‘wow’ factor in penetrating the smart mobile markets.

Whilst the engineering teams in Nokia have been wrapped up warm in their woollies back at base camp, Apple have dominated the market with Iphone 3, Ipad and now Iphone 4.  We have seen Android platforms, new blackberry touch screen handsets, the imminent launch of the Playbook etc.  All this hyper activity going on with some of Nokia’s & Microsoft’s competitors, and until now not a murmur from historically two of the most successful companies and technological market leaders of the last  two decades.

The prominence of Android platforms must be the most worrying thing for Nokia, a platform that has come completely out of no-where to capturing nearly 4.7% of market share in 2010, and well placed to surpass Nokia in global sales in 2011.

This is an impressive statistic for Google, particularly as the Smart Phone market is not considered a core competence for the internet giant.  It does demonstrate the innovative ideas Google are driving to market compared to what seems to be Nokia’s inept approach to developing its core business.

Unfortunately, and more so for Nokia than Microsoft, past successes have bred complacency, and a giant process of catch up is now on the cards. It’s a journey that Mr Elop has started with this proposed partnership; maybe a headquarter relocation is also on the cards – we will have to wait and see.

Will the partnership work? I have my doubts. Large thinking caps will be required for some market leading innovation, playing catch up is now an improbability. The next leap in innovation and market penetration will have to have the wow factor – more of the same will simply not do.  The market is already saturated with touch screen devices, mostly trying to imitate Apple’s platforms.

The question isn’t if either company has the smarts to make the next leap in innovation – both companies have very talented engineers; its whether they have the will to make the organisational and structural changes internally that will enable innovation.

We wait with baited breath to witness what will be a fascinating development over the coming months. I hope Mr Elop has plan B lined up, as I am not sure that he’ll find windows 7 is a match made in heaven. Either way the tech lab here at ditto will be monitoring developments with great interest.

Up front let’s get this clear – this is a personal experience rather than extensive market research. But it dose strike me as interesting none the less.

Three short months ago I was with Orange, as I had been for years previously, for all the obvious reasons. A degree of laziness of course, but principally because I was happy with what I was getting. The service was good, and every time my contract was up, they’d pretty much let me have what I wanted to induce me to stay. More minutes, cheaper rates, better phones – the usual. It was a yearly dance we would go through, but I was pretty comfortable with the fact that I was in the lead. With so many offers out there, and such fierce competition from rivalling Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) why would I stick around if I didn’t get what I wanted. All was well in the world of this consumer.

Until, that is, the iPhone 4 was released. It’s a feeling familiar to many: the feeling that there is no possible way you can live without that specific gadget. You have to have it. You deserve it! In fact, if you don’t have it, you’re life is going to be immeasurably diminished by its absence. But not to worry – my contract was up, and I could hear them playing my tune. I felt like dancing.

Unfortunately though, Orange had decided that as much they really really loved me, and although all our years together were special to them, if a free iPhone 4 and a decent price plan was what I wanted…I could whistle for it. There was much whaling and gnashing of teeth. Orange was sent to sleep on the sofa for a month to think about what they’d done. Our relationship was on the rocks. But no one likes sleeping on the sofa, and a few cold nights would soon work their magic.

iPhone 4

Except they didn’t. One month later there was no room for manoeuvre on the iPhone 4. I could have pretty much anything else I liked. A significant reduction in price plan, and the offer of various other swish smart phones. Twenty-four month contracts slashed to 18. The use of the executive parking and showers at any Orange outlet. Ok, not the last two, but the message was clear – take what you like, but leave the iPhones, our hands are tied. We cannot possibley drop a single sheckle, or Apple will surely have us all shot.

So like any self respecting jilted partner, I picked up my contract and left, for pastures green over at 3. To be honest it was with not a little regret, and there where teething problems, but things are going well. And I think we’ll be very happy (until my contract is up at least.)

But all of this would be nothing but a sad story of the changing seasons, where it not for the call I received today. My extensive and far reaching three months good service (bins taken out, loo seat down etc) have earned me loyalty rewards from 3. If I recommend a member of my friends or family to 3, on signing up they will receive, drum roll please… a free iPhone 4, and a contract 25% cheaper than mine! And to sweeten the deal for me? That’ll be an extra 2000 minutes a month then. Two thousand minutes – gratis.

So it would appear the gloves are really off now. Is Orange beholden to an inferior deal with Apple over their beloved iPhone 4? Or is using a loss leader as an aggressive move to take over significant ground from their competitors? In the war between MNOs are things about to get really interesting? And will I regret signing up for a 24 month contract. Assuming the answer to that last question is yes, I’d still be interested in opinions on the rest. Does anyone out there have any insight (or possibly even data?) as to what’s going on out there in MNO land?