Entertainment For Lively Minds
Another iPhone thread
My current contract — an HTC Desire running Android — is coming to an end and it's renewal time.
I did sell my soul to the Google corporation a few years ago, but I'm not so one-eyed to deny that, on balance, the iPhone is the best smartphone out there; whether it's the best value for money is another matter.
But anyway, two questions:
1. Is there any software or iPhone function that works akin to Google Listen? To clarify, Google Listen scans RSS feeds periodically and downloads new podcast episodes over wifi, without any user input. This may seem trivial, but I listen to a lot of podcasts and would find this feature difficult to live without.
2. The other thing I can't live without is Google Calendar. I've heard mixed things about Google Calendar on an iPhone — anyone any personal experience? (Other calendars are not an option.)
The other thing I've noticed is the absolutely eye-popping markup Apple charges for Flash memory. Are there any other differences between an iPhone 4S with 16GB and one with 64GB?
The difference in price, over the length of a contract, is about £500, when the additional hardware cost is probably in the region of £75. No wonder Apple has so much money in the bank.
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I have a 16gb iPhone 4.
I have never wanted for storage space, but then I don't like to carry lots of music with me. And now that I'm iTunes Matched, I doubt I ever will, but I don't suppose that's a path you'd be at all interested in, Brookster. Although being a techy type I bet you could Cloud-store your music some other way just as happily.
Re. podcasts, I have no idea: I only subscribe to two or three, which are all managed by iTunes.
Flash memory.
It's all down to the price of flash memory chips. The really high capacity ones are very expensive at the moment, as the Japanese earthquake disrupted production, and I'm sure that Apple are restricted to using just one Flash chip on the iPhone's main board.
The price of Flash memory
hasn't really been affected by recent events (although the price of hard disks certainly has).
You can buy 64GB of Flash memory on Amazon for about £70. According to this website, it costs Apple US$76.80 wholesale.
So it's the usual Apple thing — like it or lump it.
Amazon sells Flash chips?
SInce when?
Flash chips are not simply serially addressible SDHC cards, but fully addressable 64GB chips, giving far better read and write performance than the chips found in SDHC cards.
Fair enough
But my objection was the amount of markup Apple made on them.
Google Calendars
not a problem. You are given the option to set up mail accounts with your google username and password, and you can sync mail and calendars with no extra work. I can say that, in addition to that, the iCloud sync stuff for cals and contacts is also pretty much seamless. Don't use thr mail much but my calendars and contacts are backed there.
Google Listen is a bit more of a problem, as there isn't really a parallel on iPhone. I have just checked and you may (and I mean, may) be able to do some of what you want through Google Reader.
I have a 32GB iPhone, which is fairly near capacity as I like to carry a variety of stuff on it, including video. That may change, however.
Feedly
I use an RSS thingy that integrates with Google Reader called Feedly. If I've understood you correctly it does the downloading of podcasts that you want. Whenever a new one appears it turns up in Feedly and there is a little play icon - click on this and the podcast plays. It also supports Airplay so the podcast plays through my Airport speakers. It's free in the App Store.
I've been using
Downcast on the iPhone for a couple of months now for podcasts. Really excellent app, can download or stream podcasts on the fly, has intelligent playlists and is dead easy to use. It's £1.49 and well worth it.
http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/downcast/id393858566?mt=8
Another positive word about
Downcast. I've had it installed a while and like it a lot.