My Thoughts on the iPhone 5

I'm just going to talk here about my views on the new iPhone 5. If you read my previous blog re my thoughts in the iPhone 5 rumours you'll probably have a pretty good idea what I'm going to say here (http://vbiphoneblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/my-thoughts-on-iphone-5-rumours.html).



Image borrowed from www.iphonehacks.com

I'm going to put it out there at the start of this blog and say I'm disappointed with the iPhone 5. I waited from June when my contract was up for renewal until the end of September only to be met with, what was in my opinion, a substandard device. And if any Apple iSheep are reading this and getting a rage going at this point, sorry, but hey it's just my personal opinion.

So why do I think the new iPhone 5 is substandard?

Look at the picture to the left I hear you say, this device is a thing of beauty. Yes it is, I agree that it's probably the best looking phone ever built with gorgeous diamond cut and polished aluminium. It's the thinnest and lightest smart phone on the market. So from a physical point of view, it's an amazing piece of engineering.
But from an OS and feature point of view I was sorely disappointed. Where's my quad core processor that's going to see me comfortably through my 2 year contract? Where are all those nice extra little feature the Android phones offer? What is this super expensive piece of aluminium going to do to "change everything" again like the iPhone 4 did?
When I asked these questions I really couldn't justify paying ~£200 for a smart phone on contract. It seems to have become more of a fashion accessory than bleeding edge smart phone tech.

So what do I do now?

I had already been doing my research on Android and windows phone handsets based on the rumours. In the end I decided to get the Samsung Galaxy S3. Android was a more attractive operating system for me than Windows Phone. It has a better App Store (not as good as the Apple App Store though) and a similar feel but well... more free and flexible. In fact as I said in one of my other blog posts on the new Android section, it's a bit like a dog going for a walk. The move to Android felt a bit like arriving at the park and being let off the lead to run freely. Android isn't completely open unless you root it but compared to iOS, there's a whole load more you can do with your phone.

I still have and use my iPad 2 on an almost daily basis and I'm in no way an Apple hater. I just no longer feel Apple are the market leader in the smart phone market. I think that also shows in the reported problems since the iPhone 5 release. The beautiful finish on the case chips off, iOS 6 isn't as fluid to use as iOS 5. It's made improvements but it's also make mistakes. The new app store has pros and cons. Updates don't need your passed word, great. It runs a lost slower and personally I think it doesn't make good use of screen space on the iPhone at all. The new maps app has been a big mess, should have stuck with Google and updated to their new maps and maybe their navigation software.

So yes, I think the iPhone 5 is a good device but I don't think it's done to the market what the iPhone 4 did. And I mean that by a long shot as for me, the iPhone 5 didn't change anything other than my views on Apple from the market leader to chasing the pack.

Outliner for iPhone and iPad

Outliner is actually a really nice, simple app. To quote is intended function from the developers site:

"CarbonFin Outliner and Outliner for iPad allow you to organize your thoughts, tasks, and projects. Easily create a todo list for today, or track an entire project anywhere you are. Share your outlines, edit your outlines online with the free Outliner Online, and collaborate with other Outliner users"

I tried to use it to track pupil progress (from a Driving Instructor point of view) and it did a nice job. Especially on the iPad where you have the screen real estate and (compared to my iPhone 4) the processing power to keep it running quickly. To be honest I probably find it more effective than using a spredsheet as Numbers can get fiddly and laggy when there's a lot of information to process.








Draft Pupil Examples Created for Testing

So as you can see from the image to the right, Outliner has a clean UI. I filled out some pupil names and created all the sub headings I need to track pupil learning progress on.

Some of the key points I really like about Outerliner are as follows:

• Ability to create a list like those shown to the right and save it as "template" then duplicate the template and rename. For me this is essential with an app of this nature. I dont want to be manually creating each pupil progress list or any other check list that will be repeated as part of my day job. 
• I can place notes against any part of the list, even against the check box items I've created.
• The check boxes are great for me to track progress and if you look at the Parallel Park item I created, next to the words Parallel Park is a little circle, as you tick the check boxes this circle proportionatly fills up. SO at a glance progress can been seen without having to fully expand everything.
• Outliner syncs with Dropbox. Again essential for backup of data really.

Theses are just a few of the good points that for me are essential. Outliner is a flexible tool which makes it really easy to use for more than just tracking pupil progress. In fact, I think if it had the ability to sound reminder alarms it would really start to challenge some of the todo managament apps out there. It's easy to use outliner as a project and checklist manager. As you can see from the top of the above image, this is my Student Progress list. You can have multiple lists in the Main Menu (from the Outliner button on the top left) so you could have a shopping list for exmaple.

 

As I mentioned earlier, I find Outliner can be a bit slow to update on my iPhone 4, mainly when it comes to ticking the check boxes. This is probably due to the volume of the check boxes I have but at the end of the day, it's still a negative point.

A futher negative point is the positioning of the expand/collapes arrow and the completion tracking circle next to each item. If you tap on the circle you get a pop up offering to check or uncheck all. Again this is not as bad on the iPad with exrta screen space but I could see this potentially being annoying for people with bigger fingers/hands.

So overall for me, Outliner is a good tool that did more than expected. The developer is responsive to. So if you are looking to track the progress of a project, checklist, shopping list or a students leaning as I did or maybe even plan you're next novel, Outliner is a great app for the job.

Based on my experience, I'm happily scoring Outliner 4.5/5.