iPhone vs iPod touch

So with Apple's touch line-up now in place for the UK holiday season I must admit that I am hankering for one of these devices. But which one to choose? There are three choices.

8GB iPod touch for £199
16GB iPod touch for £269
8GB iPhone for £269

The iPod touch is undoubtedly a great device but the iPhone is an iPod as well. And it would be so great to do away with that extra device I carry around with me, my phone. So are any of these configurations worth me giving up my 60GB iPod and my Sony Ericsson? Ok so storage is undoubtedly an issue. At the moment I carry around about 30GB of data. Half of this is in the form of music and the rest is a few movies and most of my picture library. I also use my iPod as an external hard drive carrying various essential bits of data as and when needed. For me to purchase any of these multi-touch products I'd have to rethink how I treat my media and move away from the notion of carrying it ALL with me. This is do-able. I have a vast amount of music that I never listen to and I could treat it the same way I treat movies on my iPod and just have a few. But realistically is 8GB just a bit too restrictive? I think it probably is. In this sense I should really hold out for a 32GB option especially now that the touch devices have an OS to hold too.

The next question I'm asking myself is could I live without the phone facility. In reality I don't make that many calls. Most of my call activitiy is in the form of texts. Actually a wi-fi option on the iPod touch is pretty good. You get great browsing speeds and where I work falls into the city of London which is a free wi-fi network. This could work. The only downside is that Apple has decided to not bundle the mail program (along with a couple of other nice online apps) which is a great shame as I subscribe to .mac and I don't want to be going online to check my mail all the time. Big black mark against the iPod touch for this one.

So it really seems that this first round of multi-touch devices just aren't for me. I think it makes sense for me to get the iPhone at some point but I need it to be my fully functioning iPod too so 32GB is a must. Some food for future thought is that Apple must get on the 3G bandwagon for the iPhone to be a viable competitor to other UK phones (without losing battery life). They also need to address the camera in my mind. It should really be on the front side so that video chats become possible and a flash option should be included for still shots. Although camera phones have always been dodgy in my mind. My Sony Ericsson has a 3MP camera phone with a good flash but it is VERY slow and the images are just OK. Camera phones need to address their lag time to make them a viable option to replace carrying a camera with you. But when you see the quality of the video on a product like the Nokia N95 you know it is possible and really does give hope that the all in one device is just around the corner.

5 gum

Wrigleys are bringing out a new line of designer high tech gum and have tasked The Mill LA to produce these awesome ads depicting what it is like to chew on their product. Some incredible production values here as you sense and experience the sensations for each flavour Rain, Flare and Cobalt. I just absolutely love the ball bearings version. I want to lie in that pool, what a great massage. You can check out their microsite here

pickled onion site is live

Got the Pickled Onion (Bermuda) website finished today. It has been live with a soft launch for a couple of weeks but today I finished some minor amends to get the site fully live and complete. I'm enjoying doing restaurant websites as you get chance to create a rich media site of sorts, graphically rich and with audio. I wasn't given that many assets to work with and would have liked to have a few food shots as I feel this would really enhance the site. Perhaps I can add this at a later stage. Hopefully I have captured the look and feel of the new restaurant but your comments would be appreciated. Check it out here

go (green) gadget go

As we become more and more interested in the environment and the impact we are having on it, so companies are having to gear their products towards this trend. A slew of products are about to enter the so-called green gadget market but how do you feel about these products? Here's a round up of some that caught my eye.

Solar Power



First up is the solar powered mouse. Yes you heard me right. It could save millions of batteries a year from all those wireless mice. But how practical is this product? Do we not need sunlight to charge this beast (Wait I don't sit near a window. I'm on the lower ground floor of my building. I have my hand over my mouse all day. Hmmmm)

Solar powered products are great in some instances and I think this product could be good. I know it can be a pain to remember to redock the wireless mouse at times. Although, part of me does feel like this is a bit gimmicky and simply jumping on the green bandwagon.



Now this is a great idea. Motoroloa have recently patented this solar charged mobile phone based on the fast selling Razr. Ok so this will start out as an expensive option but lots of people don't mind forking out for quality gadgets (can anyone say iPhone). And as the cost of charging the newer phones increases with a phone's complexity, this solar powered phone will be a great option. And it looks kinda cool too.



And the silly. The solar powered bikini for the woman who has it all (sat by her by the pool...and it needs charging NOW). It just looks darned uncomfortable :S

Technology made from wood



As memories of the Morris Minor fade into our collective mushroom growing memories could it be time for a bit of a revival? Could we see a day where computers coated in plastic just seemed so passé...



This bamboo polished mouse given to the organisers of Live Earth looks great and to be honest would look great on most Ikea beech effect wooden desks. I think this is nice, different and unusual. I'm just wondering what the scroll wheel is made from?



You've got the wooden mouse. How about a cardboard coated notebook? Ahem. I'm not sure about this one. I want my laptop to be able to take a few knocks and not go all soggy if a drop of water gets spilled on it. Environmentally friendly yes. Durable maybe not.



Flat packed and made from cardboard. Muji has the answer with these great little speakers. They look pretty good and the sound isn't bad. Totally portable and mostly recyclable this is a great little gift for those with a green heart. And now that Apple is going greener it will even go with your iPod nano.

Products made from gadgets



As the waste mounts up from our disposed tech so some clever and industrious people are recycling some of this waste into "attractive" jewellery. Perhaps the upcoming Sex and the City movie will see the eponymous heroine sporting a 'C' on her right ear and a 'B' on her left from her recycled old G4 powerbook, perhaps even an old piece of motherboard dangling around her neck disguised as a necklace. Now if Gaultier or Westwood are onboard....



Any ideas what this chair has been made from? It is in fact made from recycled Playstation cases and at £99 each is simply a bargain. But they are quite hard to come by at the moment. The reason? Not enough people are throwing away their Playstations (yet).

Going green is certainly a concern for many environmentally aware corporations. Just look at Blackle which demonstrates how much energy Google could save (135,227.251 Watt hours saved at the last count) just by using a black background. Highlighting a company's energy use is one way to instigate change. Awareness is on the increase. Having a smaller carbon footprint is becoming at the foremost of people's concerns. Recently the Lights out London campaign urged Londoner's to switch off their lights for an hour saving a huge amount of energy for the capital whilst raising awareness about these issues. It is only a matter of time that companies will truly cash in on this growing market of consumers and start fighting over their EPEAT rating.

we are the night

I've had this album for a week now and I've got to say I am loving every minute of it. It is electronic heaven for me having always really liked the Chemical Brothers. They do not disappoint with this their latest album. Do it again is a floor filling, thumping and really catchy number that's already doing well in the charts. But the whole album is like an ecclectic look through someone's musical tastes. For example "The Salmon Dance" which is just bizarre in that it talks about the life of a salmon?!? and yet the song is really lively and catchy. This album works on first listen and just keeps getting better. Check it out on iTunes here

a rhythm of lines

It's out! The rhythm of lines microsite is finally live thanks to a LOT of hard work by the boys. This is what I was telling you to look out for after the TV ad I blogged about before. This is really cutting edge Flash work here utilizing some nifty papervision-esque 3D techniques and the speed of the Flash 9 player. Vorsprung Durch Technik this really is. You create your own rhythm of lines with this flash app to create a sculpture of ribbons that exists in a 3D space. Don't forget to enter your creation into the competition because Audi will choose the best designs to be printed out and sent to you. The way I understand this working is that you essentially have a 3 dimensional sky box which is fairly vast. The centre of the box draws you into it so you can never actually reach the edge. The ribbons are drawn dynamically based on the x,y,z co-ordinates generated by the mouse movement. The car models are created by using the co-ordinates generated in a 3D package such as Maya and then having that model outputed via an app called Collada to create an XML file that contains the co-ordinate information needed to draw that shape. Enjoy!

there's something in the water

Thanks to Jo at work for sending this cool animation round for V Water. I guess this product is new to the UK but I'm definitely used to it from my travels to the US. It is a nice product in itself but the way this is being marketed in the UK is quite interesting. They are going for that low-res hand drawn approach that is so popular these days. The cartoon style is playful, almost child-like. The story is fun. It is a good way to present V water as the product itself is basically water with a few extras thrown in. Tapping into the energy drink market would have been the easiest option but they are aiming towards a market who wants to try something new and different.

the dark is rising

Oh my god I could vomit with excitement. Forget The Lord of the Rings, The Wizard of Earthsea, The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe and forget Harry Potter. This series of books is superb. Written in the 60s by Susan Cooper it is an amazing fantasy coming of age story that blew me away as a kid. It was aimed at the older more discerning teen and had me totally captivated. I don't want to give away any plot points as there is one in particular that is best left for the movie but is sure to delight. I hope they aim this above kids as in my memory it was fairly adult in theme. Definitely one of your darker fantasy novels. What is also great is that it is totally British in plot featuring and melding English folk lore into present day. I hope the inclusion of an American (surely only to appeal to the US market) will not detract. Can't wait...

beyond the banner

Thanks to Marc at work for this heads up. It is a good example of thinking beyond normal constraints (phew I didn't say 'outside the box'). And although this isn't technically brilliant it is a good idea and loads of fun. I won't spoil the surprise just promise you'll keep watching until the end :) It is worth it. Check it out here.

fire & water

Don't you just love it when a piece of work just jumps out and says something to you...like wow. Superb photoshop skills are in evidence here as a blend of water drops forms to take the shape of fire. It really works because you do get blue flames some times (the gas hob works especially well). It reminds me of a British print campaign out now for Bacardi where the bottle's side is exploding into water. I can't for the life of me find it on the net though. Here is the original files on the web. No mention of the artist's name. Would love to find out who is responsible and perhaps see some more of their work. Oh and if anyone can point me to the Bacardi work I would be grateful.