That Bloke In The Big Smoke

I discovered the Samsung Galaxy Note last night... how did this mongrel of a device slip under my radar?! Although it doesn't use the new Android OS (like the new Samsung Galaxy Nexus), I'm tempted to buy it instead. It's like the smartphone/tablet version of the outdated PDA, in that it has a self-contained Stylus pen, but it also doesn't come cheap. It's more expensive than the Galaxy Nexus and probably as much as the iPhone 4S. And it might be too big to fit in many a jeans pocket.

With each passing day, it's becoming increasingly likely that I'll be abandoning the iPhone family and defecting to Android. This was certainly not the case a few weeks ago, certainly not when I drew up a list of apps and features about the iPhone that were too important to leave behind, if such a treachery were to occur. Long story short, there's almost nothing left on the list that isn't already available on Android, or on its way to fruition. And things are only going to get better with Android. Fact.

The only 'advantage' that I can think of by remaining with the iPhone is the money I'll save for the apps that I'll need to buy anew in the Android Marketplace. But if I think of it as a sunk cost (Economics jargon) then it should be easier to move on. It shouldn't be the reason for remaining with the iPhone, although given my current financial situation, it could be a while before I recover all the equivalent apps on Android. I'll also miss iTunes, its database of podcasts and the chance to use Siri.

But I'm excited about the prospect of using a smartphone technology other than the iPhone, especially one that's doing as well if not better than Apple's flagship. And though it feels weird saying goodbye to the iPhone, I know it's the right thing to do.

WORLD:
The death of climate legislation [5 Oct]
US midterms set to be most expensive [4 Oct]
Commonwealth Games: are opening ceremonies worth it? [4 Oct]
Park51 drawings prove how far 'Ground Zero mosque' claims are from truth [3 Oct]
Over 100,000 Irish workers expected to leave country before 2012 [30 Sep]

TEA PARTY:
How the Tea Party movement began [5 Oct]
Tea Party activists invoke spirit of 1773 [5 Oct]
Profile: the main Tea Party groups [4 Oct]
The Tea Party: five to watch [4 Oct]

UK:
Liverpool board agree sale to Boston Red Sox owners [6 Oct]
Ken Clarke to unveil plans for prisoners to work 40-hour week [5 Oct]
How benefit cuts could affect you [5 Oct]
Can Britain ever be a fair society? [3 Oct]
Britons robbed of £1.7bn in last five years while on holidays abroad [3 Oct]
Could Dundee be the new Bilbao? [3 Oct]
Ed Miliband gets lukewarm welcome from north of England Jews [30 Sep]

MISC:
Are guidebooks facing extinction? [3 Oct]
Are the best pictures on Facebook or Flickr? [3 Oct]
Twitter and Facebook cannot change the real world, says Malcolm Gladwell [3 Oct]

IRONY:
Martin McGuinness condemns Real IRA's Derry bomb [5 Oct]

John Naughton has written a timely article for The Guardian. He asks:

"Are we perhaps losing our sense of proportion? The smartphone market is interesting, but just a small segment of the overall market. In 2009, for example, something like 175m smartphones were sold. The top end of industry predictions of sales over the next few years is about 500m devices. But the world currently buys about 1.3bn phones a year, the vast majority of which are "dumbphones" – ie simple handsets that can't access the internet and which are much cheaper to own and run."

He uses Moore's Law to explain why smartphones will not go down market. Instead dumbphones will gradually become more sophisticated.

Do you agree?

Can I just say, WOW! How did I overlook it for so long?! I downloaded the iPhone app eons ago but kept putting it off. Eventually I forgot about it. Then a few weeks ago I read about how Amazon were selling more ebooks on Kindle than actual books themselves. Even that didn't motivate me to immediately look it up. But a couple days ago I was browsing through Amazon and I don't know why, but I clicked on the Kindle link. And bloody hell. I wish I'd followed my usual predatory instinct for adopting new technologies a lot earlier. Their books are CHEAP*, like cheaper than books normally cost on Amazon itself and more importantly, they're easy to read on the iPhone. And you don't have to read them on an iDevice. I never realised Amazon sold their own Kindle reading device. Check it out if you haven't already. It's rad!

* For instance, this book's hardcover RRP is £30. On Amazon it costs £18 and the paperback £15. But the Kindle eBook? Just £8!

The Guardian is my favourite iPhone app. I had tried sharing my favourite articles before but I found myself wasting too much time writing details about each one, so I've decided to just leave a list of my favourite ones. I'm not sure whether I'll update these every week, fortnight or monthly, but for now here's a selection of my favourite articles between April and July. The next edition will begin with August articles.

HEALTH/DIET/ENVIRONMENT:
Reality check: Is the UK's cancer death rate worse than Bulgaria's? (16 Apr 2010) - Denis Campbell
Is veganism safe for kids? (20 Apr 2010) - Joanna Moorhead
The ethics of veggie cats and dogs (24 May 2010) - Dan Welch

EDUCATION:
Black students trail white classmates in achieving first-class degrees (15 Jun 2010) - Jessica Shepherd
Paris stages 'festival of errors' to teach French schoolchildren how to think (21 Jul 2010) - Lizzy Davies
Born too late: age ruins GCSE results for 10,000 pupils a year (29 Jul 2010) - Jessica Shepherd

ECONOMY:
London's richest people worth 273 times more than the poorest (20 Apr 2010) - Randeep Ramesh
Can Malaysia's Islamic gold dinar thwart capitalism? (17 Jul 2010) - Nazry Bahrawi

TRANSPORT:
UK military aircraft involved in 832 near misses in five years (22 Jun 2010) - Polly Curtis, Dan Milmo
Police quell Ryanair mutiny with chocolate (25 Jun 2010) - Severin Carrell

SPORT:
The World Cup defeat that lost an election (20 Apr 2010) - Frank Keating

I can't believe I only discovered iPhone apps for this a few days ago. I've seen the future. It's augmented reality. You read it here first.

It's my fave non-video app and the one I waste most of my time on. It's really worth it. Thought I'd share some interesting articles:

The Library of Congress, the world's largest library based in Washington DC, has announced that it will store every single tweet posted on Twitter, going back to March 2006, for posterity. Twitter processes more than 50 million tweets a day, the total numbering in the billions!

Staying with America, it's come to light that George Washington, the country's first President, never returned two books he borrowed from the New York Society Library in 1789, resulting in a fine which in today's prices (when adjusted for inflation) would total $300,000. One was an essay on international affairs called Law of Nations and the other, the 12th volume of a 14-volume collection of debates from the English House of Commons. When the librarians checked their collections, they found only thirteen volumes out of the fourteen! Other prominent borrowers such as Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr didn't seem to have the same problem returning their books, but the current head librarian has kindly offered to waive the fine on Washington's descendants if at least the books are returned.

Meanwhile Down Under, Penguin Australia has ordered the destruction of 7,000 copies of The Pasta Bible held in its warehouses. A recipe for tagliatelle with sardines & prosciutto contains the misprinted suggestion that the dish required "salt and freshly ground black people"!

Closer to home, Geoffrey Alderman, professor of politics and contemporary history at Buckingham (Britain's only private university!), explains the Jewish vote really does count. Not in terms of the big picture, as British Jews only make up 0.5% of the population, but because they are heavily concentrated in London and Manchester. He says there are 7 seats with Jewish populations of at least 10% and all are held by Labour. But some of them are key marginal battlegrounds, for example Finchley & Golders Green, Hendon and Bury South.

Speaking of battles, IT geeks will be closely following the interesting tussle taking place between Apple and Adobe. Apple's iDevices are not Flash compatible (unless they are jailbroken). Flash, developed by Adobe, is the multimedia platform that has become the de facto industry standard to add animation and interactivity to web content. But Apple doesn't want to become dependent on a competitor's product, so they've made a key change to their 21,000-word 'agreement' that you have to sign if you want to develop applications for Apple's iDevices. Section 3.3.1 of the document contains a provision that prohibits the use of "an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool" to develop applications for iDevices. Why? Because four days earlier, Adobe launched the latest version of their Creative Suite software which tucked within it, is a new tool that converts Flash applications into something that'll run on the iPhone. Coincidence?

And finally a bit of sport. "Is the rise of the super-athlete ruining sport? From Usain Bolt to Rafa Nadal, top sports stars are fitter, faster and stronger than ever. But how long will it be before the pursuit of perfection takes all the drama out of sport?" Read David Runciman's rant.