iPhone 4 Bumper

Same as most people who were fortune enough to get their hands on a iPhone 4 on release day, I ordered a bumper case too. Now grated, this is essentially £25 for a bit of rubber that surrounds the iPhone, but it really works.

The bumper itself is rubber on the front and back, with hard plastic in the middle. When fitted, it lifts the iPhone about a millimeter from the desk, stopping it from getting scratched. It also gives additional protection on the corners and sides.

Once fitted, it looks like it belongs, each cutout is perfect for the mics, speakers, buttons and dock. I have however noticed that unless your using an official Apple cable, it won’t fit in the slot. I’m picking up a dock connecter at the weekend, so will let you know if it fits or not.

I say again….there are £25 for a bit of rubber, but as I’ve spent £600 on a phone, £25 is nothing to keep it protected.

Pictures below

Tags: Apple, bit, Bumper, cable, connecter, cutout, day, desk, dock, fortune, front, iphone, iphone 4, middle, millimeter, nothing, phone, plastic, protection, rubber, speakers, weekend

iPhone 4

Well today’s the day, and my new shiny iPhone 4 is here !

Just a little bit of background. About 2 and a half years ago, I bought myself a 2nd Generation iPod Touch 32Gb. Since then, I’ve bought a 2x MacBook Pro’s, 2 x 27″ iMacs,  a Mac Mini, and a iPhone 3GS, a Time Capsule, and think I can be officially called an Apple fanboy.

My contract with Vodafone was up at the beginning of the year but I’ve waited until the release of the next generation of iPhone…and that’s today.

Now to be honest, I cheated a little, I couldn’t wait so bought an iPhone 3GS a couple of months ago. I went halves with C, and was bought with the understanding that it becomes hers as soon as I got the new one.

So what do I think ?……I love it !

First thing I notices was the size of it, having this in one hand and the 3GS in the other, there is a noticeable size difference, almost the same as between the iPod Touch and the 3GS.

The next thing was the screen….there have been may “experts” claiming that this isn’t actually “Retina display” due to the some discrepancy, I don’t really care, this screen is amazing ! Retina or not, it’s an amazing looking screen. The best way I can is switching from DVD to Bluray, but on a 3.5″ screen. Everything looks sharper, crisper with a lot more contrast.

As for the software itself, I’m now quite familiar with that, as the iOS 4 software was released a few days ago, and I’ve been playing with it since.

The camera features (flash, HD Recording, and FaceTime), I plan to put them to use at the weekend, and post shortly after, however initial impressions are a massive improvement over the 3GS, even the zoom functions works without looking too ugly.

The only think that I was kinda shocked with, is that fact that there’s no dock connector in the box, and Apple are charging £7 for a pack of 3.

I’m really delayed in posting this, thanks to Vodafone, I’ll not bother going into a full rant, but after 2 weeks of chasing, calling at the store, and the Apple store, I’ve been unable to get a micro sim…and ended up cutting mine down !

It’s still early days with the phone, and I’ll update with more info and photos later.

Below are the unboxing pics

Tags: Apple, Bluray, camera features, contrast, discrepancy, dock, everything, fanboy, few days, half, half years, hd recording, info, initial impressions, iphone, ipod, ipod touch, little bit, Mac Mini, massive improvement, next generation, pack, phone, rant, Retina, screen, software, store, time capsule, touch, vodafone, weekend, year, zoom

Mac Mini

“Dear Mr Jobs,

When I said “Your work here was done”, in my previous post about my iPhone, I may have been telling porkies, as I still had a Windows machine in the house, however you’ll be glad to know, that I’ve done the right thing, and replaced it with a Mac Mini. Sorry for the porkie, and I am now 100% Apple.

Your ever faithful disciple

Darren.”

As you can probably tell from the above, I’ve replaced my last remaining Windows machine with a Mac Mini (Really ? No sh1t Sherlock). To be honest I’ve been toying with the idea since getting the MacBooks last year, as essentially all the Windows machine did was act as a server. It was my media server, my iTunes server, my torrent downloading machine (all legal of course) and a way of dialling into my network from the outside world using remote desktop and port forwarding.

As you can probably suss from my ted post, I spent a little time and ensured that I could still carry out the same functions on the Mac.

I’m using PS3 Media Server to stream to my PS3′s and Xbox,I’m using a uTorrents as my torrent client,iTunes (obviously) for my iTunes server and finally VNC to dial it.

All these pieces of software are available cross platform, so all is good.

The Mac Mini turned up on Monday (unboxing below). The thing that got me about this was just how small the Mac Mini actually is, imagine stacking 4/5 CD cases onto of each other, and that it !

This this is silent, so compact, so tidy, and takes up no room whatsoever !.

As this is just going to be used for the same purpose the Windows machine was, I didn’t really need a high spec, as the Dell I was replacing was only a 2Gb Core 2 Duo, with 2Gb of Ram.

I went for the below, which to be honest it more than adequate for what I need.

• 2.26GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
• 2GB memory
• 160GB hard drive¹
• 8x double-layer SuperDrive
• NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics
• Mac OS X Snow Leopard

Now unlike the iMac, this doesn’t come with a mouse or keyboard, these are optional, however I had a spare set kicking around. The Mac Mini does have an internal speaker (which to be honest I was a little shocked at, as this device is so small. You do however have the option of connecting external speakers via the 3.5mm jack plug at the back.

The Video out connections are both the Mini DVI and the Mini Displayport adapters, allowing you to connect this to VGA, DVI and HDMI, however you only get a Mini DVI to DVI connecter included.

As with all my apple equipment, I switched it on, entered my details, and done !

This has been the final piece is a very expensive jigsaw, however my household is completely Mac, Goodbye Windows, I hope I never have to use you again ! (well, I do have to use it every day at work…but I don’t really have a choice in that)

Tags: act, Apple, cd cases, core, course, cross platform, Darren, dear mr, dell, disciple, double layer, drive1, duo, DVI, faithful, faithful disciple, geforce, house, idea, iphone, jobs, little time, mac, Mac Mini, Mac OS, mac os x, macbooks, machine, media server, Mr Jobs, porkie, post, PS3, remote desktop, server, Sherlock, ted post, thing, Torrent, torrent client, unboxing, utorrents, way, windows, windows machine, work, X Snow, xbox, year