Posts Tagged ‘iphone’

Papago M6 For iPhone – A Very Quick Look

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

As I tweeted the other day, the iPhone is slowly addressing some of my earlier major concerns.  As they say, better late than never.  In this case, it’s the GPS functionality.  Papago, a Taiwanese company not as renowned as Garmin, TomTom and iGo, has released a version of its GPS navigation software for the iPhone.  What’s great about this software is that it uses malfreemaps’ free map of Singapore and Malaysia.  Malfreemaps, along with malsingmaps are the two premier, and free mapping communities in Malaysia, with extremely frequent map updates.  I personally prefer malfreemaps because you can get their maps free (updated weekly for the Garmin version, and twice a month for the Papago versions, if I am not mistaken) without making you jump through hoops like malsingmaps just to enjoy the latest maps.

Here’s a quick look at the iPhone interface  - the videos were recorded on the iPhone with very poor frame rates, so it appears to advance very quickly – since these are short videos and fast to load, just pause the YouTube videos when you need more time to see what’s on the screen!  To update the map, you have to rely on Papago releasing them, or if you have a jailbroken iPhone, you can do it yourself (very very easy!) whenever malfreemaps releases a map update (I use DiskAid to transfer the files over, a more complicated solution would be to use SSH into the iPhone).

Here’s the software version and map version:

Here’s PoI (point of interest) searching:

Here’s road name search:

Here’s a quick look at the 3D buildings feature – notice that a tap at the bottom of a building will bring up the building’s name at the bottom left corner.  There’s also a feature to pan the map automatically by tapping an onscreen button.  Finally, the 3D representation of a building is realistic so you won’t mistake a building for another!

Here’s a route simulation of a route that I created.  Note the “junction view” feature, which gives you a “real world” representation of the picture of a junction where you are supposed to turn.

Hope you enjoy these, @derekw!

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Here’s What An Android Phone Would Look Like…

Sunday, March 7th, 2010

…if Apple was successful in getting the courts to agree with them on the patents being infringed upon by HTC.  If you recall, Apple filed suit against HTC, alleging that HTC infringed on 20 of its patents.  Among the more recognisable ones, especially if you were an iPhone and Android user, are the slide to unlock gesture to wake a phone from a standby state, auto rearranging of application icons on the homescreen upon the addition or deletion of an application, and scrolling by dragging anywhere on the screen.  If these were found to be the intellectual property of Apple, here’s what a Google Android based phone would look:

Funny, eh?  And most commentators are saying that this suit is actually more against Google’s Android rather than HTC, and that poor HTC was caught in the middle because of its prolific portfolio of Android handsets!

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Can The iPad Tether To The iPhone?

Saturday, March 6th, 2010

Ah, the weekend.  Time to relax.  Time to spend time with the family and loved ones.  Not the time to write long responses to emails.  We continue Saturday humour with yet another post, again involving Apple.  Who says Apple were a deadly serious company with no sense of humour?

A Swede, who said he was a long time Apple fan (no indication of whether “fan” translates into a “buying fan” or whether he is a “sideline fan”) wrote to Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO, enquiring whether the WiFi only iPad can tether to the iPhone.  ”Tether” means to use the iPhone as a wireless broadband modem, so that the iPad can connect to the iPhone to use the iPhone’s internet connection so that the iPad can get online.

For the short answer from Mr Jobs – click here.  Like I said, the weekend is not a time to write long responses to emails!

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AMOLED Isn’t That Great…Yet…

Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010

The buzz in screen technology nowadays is about the brightness, vividness and crispness of AMOLED, and lately, Samsung’s Super AMOLED (as found on its Wave S8500 bada smartphone) screens.  But apparently OLED technology doesn’t best the old LCD technology in all areas – it is still new, and is still maturing, and LCD is still better than OLED screens in some respects.

I don’t pretend to understand all the technobabble in this article which attempts to explain the areas where OLED technology still lags behind LCD, by comparing the Google Nexus One’s screen to the iPhone’s, so I’ll leave it to you to read it for yourself.  But I certainly think it is the way of the future, and Apple is even reportedly considering using the OLED technology in its next generation iPhone – at the moment, dubbed the “iPhone 4G”.

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Papago Malaysia/Singapore For The iPhone

Monday, March 1st, 2010

Papago, a Taiwan GPS mapping and navigation company, recently released its M6 product for the iPhone and iPod Touch platforms.  If you own an iPhone and have been complaining to date that the GPS functionality on your iPhone sucks, this one is for you.  It’s better than Garmin Mobile XT, according to some.  Why?  One – it’s got 3D building views, which is extremely useful if you’re going to an area you are unfamiliar with, and need some visual cues as to where you are.  Second – it’s got a feature called junction view – which tells you which lane to use when you turn off at a junction – again, extremely useful, given the deplorable state in which our signboards have been haphazardly placed and sign-posted.

There are two versions – a lite and pro.  The former does not have the bells and whistles of the 3D building views and junction views; the latter has all the works thrown in.  One unfortunate thing about this software is that there is currently no easy way to update the maps – one has to depend on Maction (the sellers of Papago) to issue periodic updates for this.  But, if you’re jailbroken, you can update whenever a new map is released.  And the map is from none other than malfreemaps, which I consider to be the premier mapping community in Malaysia.  And like their Garmin maps, the Papago map is free – just download the Android version and you’re good to go – just connect the iPhone to your PC, and copy around 30 files over to the device.  Post a comment if you want to know how to do this.

The Papago M6 version for the iPhone costs US$19.99, approximately RM 68.  For some screenshots of this app in action, click here (thanks for malfreemaps as usual for sharing such a great Malaysian map with us!).  Because of the size of the map and associated files involved, the Papago version of the malfreemaps map is not updated as frequently, although it is still updated more frequently than most other competing maps.  So, do you use it?  How’s it working out for you?

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