My take on the iPhone 3G, especially its GPS

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The buying experience

It was a given that at some point, I would get myself an iPhone. So why delay the inevitable? I went to the new Telefónica "flagship" store at the Gran Via in Madrid that opened on iPhone day. I got there at 8.40 with some 150 people in line already. The store opened at 10.00 and the line started moving forward incredibly slowly. At 13.30 it started to dawn on me that this was probably going to take all day. It did. After being in the sun during the hottest hours of the day I finally got inside the store at 15.30, but then it took another three hours before it was my turn. Apparently some servers somewhere melted down. But at 18.50 I finally had my iPhone. I'm glad I have it, but I'm not going to let something like this happen ever again. And had I known it would take this long, I'd never done this.

Activation

One of the weird things about this launch is that people were supposed to leave the store with a working phone. In the US, at least. In Spain, I got a SIM package and a phone, both of which were dutifully scanned and presumably linked together in the cloud, and then a little flyer telling me how to activate the iPhone 3G at home using iTunes. Obviously giving people a phone that is ready to make calls is hardly a bad thing, but Apple and AT&T must have realized that this would add extra time in the shops, even if they didn't foresee the massive activation issues that ensued.

What I think is that either Apple or AT&T wants to work towards a future where you can get an iPhone even if you don't have a computer. Although strictly, this would be possible today if the phone is activated in the store, that would be inviting trouble because content bought from the iTunes or apps stores can't be backed up and will invariably be lost at some point. However, it shouldn't be too troublesome to use an iPhone with a computer, but without an internet connection. That only means you can't download software updates. The requirements for the iPhone do list a computer, but not an internet connection. However, the box for my Spanish iPhone does list an internet connection as a requirement. (No, the iPhone 3G's own connection to the internet doesn't count.)

The iPhone 3G vs the iPod Touch

I never had an original iPhone, but only an iPod Touch, so many features that aren't actually new are new to me. The iPod functionality is slightly worse, despite the physical volume buttons. On the Touch video and music are separate things, that each remember what you were playing independently. On the iPhone 3G video can be found in a little corner of the iPod application. What's really annoying is that double-pressing the home button will only bring up the overlay iPod controls when you're playing audio. If not, then you'll be transported to the iPhone app. The volume goes much higher on the phone than on the touch, which is a good thing if you have headphones that are on the quiet side. I love being able to play podcasts over the speaker! Another very good thing: calendar month view will now start on monday rather than sunday. This was driving me crazy.

GPS

I've been trying to find out as much as I can about the GPS functionality, or rather, the location services. Although many applications in the app store can make use of location services, only two of the built-in applications do the same: maps and the camera. Both will ask you whether they can use your location information when you start—most of the time. It seems like after a few times, they don't bother anymore. However, it also looks like there is a bug in the maps application, and possibly also in the camera: when you've tried to determine your location unsuccessfully a few times, it won't work anymore after that, even if you have a clear view of a sky full of GPS satellites. A power cycle will clear this up.

It's surprising to see how quickly the iPhone can determine its position when there is good GPS coverage. I'm not sure if it's fast enough to embed location information in a photo if you open up the camera app and immediately press the virtual shutter, though. Unfortunately, you only get to find out when you sync and bring up the EXIF data on the computer. I have a few photos where there is a location in degrees and minutes, but the seconds are both zero. I'm guessing this happens when there is no GPS info, but only less precise location data from cell towers or wifi networks. One minute is an accuracy within a nautical mile (1852 meters). So far I haven't seen the GPS altitude filled in, maybe this will happen with photos taken with a strong GPS signal.

In the maps application, if you press the little widget in the bottom left corner, it turns blue and the phone starts homing in on your location. (Pressing it again doesn't necessarily stop this, though.) If you see a circle, it's using cell towers or wifi signals, but when it gets a GPS lock you see a blue dot that periodically pulses. It also has a larger blueish area around it that indicates the accuracy of the location fix. When you start moving, the blue dot moves with you, with a slight delay. In "search" mode, the dot moves all over the place, often 5 - 15 meters from the actual location. (Or are Google's maps inaccurate?) However, in "directions" mode, the dot tries to stick to streets in general, and the calculated route in particular. Unfortunately, the directions still have to be advanced by hand, the blue dot isn't helpful in this regard. I'm thinking that quickly recalculating the route from your current location once every few minutes makes more sense than meticulously trying to follow a previously calculated route.

In order to see if the GPS would also work unassisted, I turned on flight mode. No go. Turning wifi back on also didn't help. Apparently the GPS receiver is only powered when the cellular network is operational. However, by turning the iPhone off and on and not unlocking the SIM, the phone can't connect to the cell network but the cellular radio is operational. (You can make calls to 911 or 112 in this mode.) The iPhone didn't have any trouble locking on to a GPS location without any cellular or wifi internet access. In fact, it's so fast that I can't believe it's doing an actual GPS cold start. This can take many minutes on older GPS receivers. I'm guessing at least some GPS information is still cached. Looks like I'll have to investigate this further. Note that the Google map data is also cached, so if you bring up the area that you're going to visit before you lose your internet connectivity, you can then use the GPS to see where you are without network access.

Permalink - posted 2008-07-14

Looking forward to 3G/UMTS: better sound!

▼ A long, long time ago, someone decided that an 8 kHz sampling rate was good enough for phone conversations. That's pretty crappy. And cell phones use last century's compression to make it sound even worse. But there is light at the end of the tunnel: AMR-WB on UMTS!

Around 1998/1999 cell phones were cool. At least, to me: I just got my first one, and three new cell networks were being built in the Netherlands. On February 4, 1999, the strangely named mobile operator 'Ben' started, and I signed up with them that day.

In the intervening years I stopped following cellular technology and I only got a new phone in 2004 (or was it 2005?) because I got fed up with the inability to sync contacts between my Mac and my old phone.

But after all the rumors about 3G iPhones I started reading up on 3G (UMTS) a bit, and it turns out that 3G has something really good in store: the AMR-WB codec. Originally, GSM used a pretty pathetic full rate codec, but even its enhanced replacement sounds significantly worse than uncompressed audio. And there's still the issue that all frequencies below 300 and above 3400 Hz are thrown out.

With AMR wide band, the frequency range is from 50 to 7000 Hz, which is a lot better: listen to the samples on this page.

AMR-WB uses only 12 - 13 kbps like HR and EFR, so there's really no reason for UMTS networks not to use it. However, because the higher quality audio obviously doesn't survive conversion to/from standard 8 kHz encoding, you'll only hear the higher quality on calls between AMR-WB capable phones on networks with AMR-WB capable interconnects. So it's going to take a while before the majority of calls will sound better.

But it's a start and I'm now actually looking forward to having a 3G phone. Preferably an iPhone.

Permalink - posted 2008-05-04

Geert Wilders' movie Fitna

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A few days ago, Dutch politician Geert Wilders finally released his 17-minute movie Fitna online. He chose the service LiveLeak for this, which I hadn't heard of before. The movie loaded very slowly and didn.t play on my Mac. Fortunately, it's also available on Google Video, where the video plays just fine and, nice for those like me who don't like watching video embedded in web pages, it can be downloaded in iPod-compatible format. Apparently there were threats of an unspecified nature against LiveLeak employees which prompted them to remove the movie.

So, what do I think of the movie?

Many people have complained that it's all images we've seen before. That's true. The first half of the movie consists of parts of koran verses and images of violence done in the name of the islam, such as the september 11, 2001 attacks. It's easy to dismiss all of this, but it's the simple truth that a lot of violence happens in the name of the islam. Where does this hate come from?

In the movie, the word 'allah' is used throughout. That's strange. This is simply the Arabic word for 'god', and the god of islam is the same god that christians and jews believe in: the Abrahamic god. There is also a number of factual mistakes.

The second half is very different. Here, Wilders argues that the islam intends to turn Dutch (western?) society into an islamic one. This is laughable. Maybe there are a few people that are interested into pursuing this agenda, but in neighborhoods like transvaal and the schilderswijk in The Hague and similar ones elsewhere where immigrants make up most of the population, voter turnout barely tops 10% in some elections.

At the end, a hand takes a page from the koran, the image goes to black and we hear a ripping sound. Then a title tells us that the sound we heard was a page being ripped from the phone book. This is cheap theatrics. Wilders didn't have the guts to rip the actual page from the koran but still hints at it. I wonder what would have happened if he had. But it's probably for the best that he didn't, even now much of the reactions are about how 'insulting' the movie is, rather than address its message.

About the message and the reactions: interestingly, they both have a point. The koran, like the bible, does preach violence under some circumstances. And a good number of believers take its content to be the literal word of god. So the only thing that protects society against the proscribed violence is the ability of said believers to maintain cognitive dissonance. It's also true that most muslims are non-violent, productive members of society, and putting them in the same class as suicide bombers is insulting.

In my opinion, all of this is an issue of fundamentalism. A fundamentalist follows his or her doctrine all the way to its logical conclusion, no matter what the consequences. A good example is the animal rights activist who killed would-be politician Pim Fortuyn. He believed that Fortuyn's views were so harmful that he had to be stopped at all costs. In this way, it looks like Geert Wilders is also very close to being a fundamentalist. He certainly seems to understand the fundamentalist mind set quite well, assuming that all muslims will stop at nothing to make Holland an islamic theocracy. However, most people are much more pragmatic than that. My one time Algerian brother in law wouldn't dream of eating pork, but he had no trouble drinking wine. Both are equally disallowed by islamic law.

Of course pragmatists don't understand fundamentalists on either side any more than those understand each other. As such the debate that started as soon as Wilders announced his movie won't go anywhere and will only serve to install fear, uncertainty and doubt and hurt many, many feelings.

Permalink - posted 2008-03-30