Snowy Garden in King Edward Avenue

Here is another iPhone video clip of the snow in our back garden. It snowed yesterday, but it has been around zero temperature or below most of the time, so little of it has gone away.

Foxprints in the Snow

This video recorded on my new 3Gs iPhone, which I got yesterday as my contract was up for renewal. It was very easy to get video onto Facebook. I have not looked at directly uploading here to the blog yet, but perhaps the direct email address might just work.

Google Earth knows where I am

This photo is a screen shot from my iPhone using the Google Earth app. It can geo-locate you (see the blue dot) and then track you in realtime. I love the development of useful software that helps you based on knowing where you are.

Jim White, who us driving me today, put me onto the O2 traffic line (dial 1200 from any O2 phone) and you get traffic info based on where your phone is calling from. Cool.

Back to the future

Huge choice of on-demand, free content on my iPhone

Our lives are quite frenetic in Rose's last surge of Christmas in a Shoebox weeks, as the boxes come in from all over the country  - probably in excess of 45,000 this year. The weather, and storage, checking them and repacking into boxes for the trucking to Romania and Moldova, each have their problems. Last night we were supervising about 15 local sea scouts (if one is actually able to supervise 21st century 12-15 year semi-humans all these days) and in a chaotic, noisy couple of hours they actually loaded almost five pallets of boxes before disappearing into the night quicker than they arrived. Tomorrow I have three deputation speaking engagements - one in Iver and two in Uxbridge, so it means an early departure and late return.But Monday I shall take off, to catch up a little.

So what is the picture all about? I had played with Joost more than a year ago, but really did not have time or interest to watch TV on my laptop with so much already available on, well, my TV! However, Joost have released an iPhone app for their incredibly huge collection of old movies, classi tv shows, and much more. So, I can watch The Monkees, or the Beverley Hillbillys, etc, whenever I want, on my phone. The picture quality is great, sound is great, and it further demonstrates my long held view that the delivery of media content is rapidly heading towards the phone as a control centre.

Luckier than most

These two fellas, proudly displaying tickets 3 and 4, were my line-neighbours for several hours yesterday morning, in that queue of early-adopters drooling in anticipation of getting their hands on their very own iPhone 3G. I think #3 was Ashley, not sure, and you know I never asked the other fella his name. Been in England too long - people's names, where they live, work, etc is their own business! And that of every facial recognition camera in the country, I guess. Who will pass it along to the intelligence authorities, who might just have someone working there who could sell data to someone else, that ends up on Google, delivering targeted ads to your iPhone that now also knows where you are.

Numero Uno for that iPhone

Fiona - Lucky Lady Number 1

A lady called Fiona (did not ask her surname) beat me by 5 minutes into first place in the line outside the O2 store in Worthing yesterday. The ocassion was the launch of the new iPhone 3G, and I have to admit to have been anticipating its arrival for some time now. I got up at 4am, to walk into town, and getting there just before 5am. Fiona looked relieved that she was not the only silly person in West Sussex! It took about 15 minutes for number 3 to arrive, and after 6am there was a steady flow of people adding to the length of the line. It was a pretty sociable queue, especially seeing that Brits hate standing in lines at the best of times. In the first 50 or so, there were only three ladies!

I still think I could separate the hardened 'I use Apple stuff for everything' crowd from the plodders like me who are still chained by circumstance to PC and Windows Apple geeks just always seem to have that look of feeling just a little bit luckier than others.

The doors opened at 8.02 - great marketing for a company called O2, and us first two were processed in less than 10 minutes - new account, credit check, pay for the phone, and out the door. Then the O2 servers crashed mightily under the weight of every store in the country trying to register new accounts. More than 24 hours later, I still have not had my actual phone service turned on, waiting (mostly) patiently for O2 to rach me in their huge pile of pending activation requests. The new phone is awesome. I suspect it will change radically the way I can work on the road, or away from the office. The interaction opportunities for citizen journalism and field reporting are whizzing round in my head - can't wait to test some of them out.

The iPhone cometh

The new iPhone 3G arrives in the UK and a bunch of other countries on 11 July. I am about 75% sure I will get one, just a lingering problem with the family budget! Here's a video that gives a great overview - and if you are in one of the new iPhone countries, especially Australia or South Africa ... enjoy!

Breaking News

I found this on The Gaping Void blog, and Hugh said he found it somewhere else. It is a reat commentary on what make for news. However, iPhone mania is not really here in the UK yet - our launch date is still months away and yet to announce which service provider will get the nod. Although I really think that I would love to be able to play with the new iPhone, I read initial reviews are suggesting people wait for both a more stable version of the software and a lower price, once all the Apple hype about the phone has started to recede.

The iPhone is real

Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Inc, (formerly Apple Computers Inc.) this week anounced Apple's amazing iPhone. Nokia and cousins are shrugging it off, but even though I am only an Apple convert in terms of the iPod and all things MP3, my hunch is that this time next year will see Jobs gloating in the market share that this extraordinary device, a teleputer really, will have stolen away from the big boys of the mobile phone market.

Me? Sure, I'd love to play with an iPhone, but my real excitement is the paradigm shift in what this device does for understanding the huge shift that is silently marching against traditional broadcast delivery of content, to a little sliver of amazing electronics and code that slips into your pocket.

Watch George Guilder's top 10 predictions for the teleputer here Sorry that you have to wade through the ads and other Forbes content first, but that's how it is ...