Guardian Own-goal

I've written on many occasions about the Guardian and Observer - their inability to call the right shots on Apple, the MMR scandal of the Observer and a few other gaffes, but I had to write this one down for posterity demonstrating that their sports correspondents also seem to be a bit weak.

On Sunday in the last game of the season, Everton beat Fulham by 2-0, (well done Everton by the way and particularly contratulations to David Moyes and Bill Kenwright), and the Guardian report by Jamie Jackson on the match had the following gem (no doubt it's been fixed in the link, but here's the quote anyway):

Sir Alex Ferguson's Manchester United are Everton's opponents in Saturday's FA Cup final.

This will no doubt come as a shock to Everton, who felt that beating Manchester United in the semi-finals would have been enough to eliminate them from the competition. Chelsea may also feel aggrieved having been ousted after legitimately beating Arsenal in the other semi-final.

This is such a basic mistake, it's hard to imagine anyone even remotely qualified in football making it. But perhaps, Mr Jackson just wanted to get United mentioned a few times in the short report on the match? Perhaps the article gets more hits if this team is mentioned, even though the link to this game was tenuous at best?

Anyway guys, time for a root and branch clean up of your writers?

I'll be winding this blog down even further over the coming months as no one is really interested, and I'm so short of time nowadays (those that know me will understand why, those that don't are free to ask!). But I will try to take the opportunity to revisit some of the posts and see if Hobsblog called the shots better than the British press. (hint: I think we did!)

Tags: Guardian, Everton, Fulham

iTunes DRM-free 40 minutes BEFORE MacWorld!

Just spotted that a whole load of albums - TingTings, Duffy, etc are now all DRM-free on the UK iTunes store.

So, it looks like this one rumour is TRUE! Finally. I don't think the labels had much choice ultimately - it would have been severely anti-competitive to prevent Apple from having this option, when competitors had been given it.

Anyhow, I'm off on a spending spree. Oh, and the Ting Tings is just £3.95 and Duffy £4.99 - not bad prices either!

You heard it here FIRST!

Update: Albums from the Cure, Morrissey, Echo and the Bunnymen - all of which I'm sure previously were with DRM, now are iTunes plus. Labels include Sony BMG and Warner.


Tags: iTunes, DRM, Apple, iPod

New Google Public Transport Info Sucks!

Got my iPhone 2.2 software loaded and thought I'd check out some of the new features.

I haven't been able to get Google Street View to work yet for London, but I did come to try the new travel directions feature. Unfortunately the results are embarrassing - for Google, and I think this needs a lot more work on it.

Here's what I got for a simple route from Piccadilly in London to Battersea SW11. It's a route of about 4.5km or just under 3 miles, walkable in about 55 minutes. A single London bus (19) will do the journey in (hopefully) about half that time.

Google's instructions were as follows:
1. Walk 1.1km to Hyde Park corner (fair enough).
2. Take the 702 bus towards Ascot but getting off at Victoria station - 1 stop on. (For my American friends this journey is like getting on a greyhound bus in Manhattan and going 5 blocks down 5th Avenue).
3. Get the the 025 bus towards Eastbourne (a town on the south coast), but getting off at Gatwick airport.. Note, no suggestion about the much faster train service from exactly the same place also to Eastbourne and also stopping at Gatwick airport. Gatwick airport is about 25-30 miles from central London.
4. Now take the airport bus from South terminal to north terminal!.
5. Get a bus EB4 from Gatwick to Fulham Broadway back in Central London.
6. Finally walk 2.4km to SW11 (total walk of 3.5km).

This public transport version which saves just 1km of walking, takes 3 hours and 15 minutes and appears to travel at least 60 miles! There is no cost given, but I suspect it is substantial.

Google claims (on it's website) to use the travelinesoutheast.org.uk data. However, using this service throws up several London bus routes (though not the best ones). It would seem that Google has ignored 98% of the available alternatives (including all London buses, and all trains).

A year ago, we used a government service to find the best route to drive to Hastings on the south coast, and it threw up a route going via Ashford and over 90 miles in distance. The direct route (which google itself gave) was around 55 miles. The government site then added further futility by suggesting speed should be no more than 55mph to limit CO2 emissions! Sure, your CO2 emissions might be 10% less than they would have been, but their stupid route would have increased it by 50% over what it should have been anyway!

It seems we've still got a way to go in making these services useful. I'd hate to see what a tourist would have done with Google's information, and I'm glad I use my bike to get around London.

Tags: Google, iPhone, Transport, London

New Forest Donkeys waiting for bus

Just got back from a brief trip to the New Forest which despite being grey and rainy was still spectacular. I can certainly recommend the New Park Manor Hotel and Spa which - on a Sunday night deal - is great value. But my favourite moment is captured here (trying a new camera incidentally as well) while cycling round the area.

I'll definitely be heading back for a spring visit with hopefully better light.

Funny thing is nobody had told the donkeys that the bus doesn't run on Sundays!

New Apple store in London White City

I queued up to get into the new Westfield Centre in White City this morning, then queued up to get into the new Apple Store (not helped by none of the centre staff knowing where it was - it's on the 3rd floor).

Anyhow, here's a photo of it. It's certainly not London Regent Street-size but bigger than some I've seen.

The Westfield Centre is quite an amazing experience - not exactly my cup of tea - but as the 3rd largest of its kind in UK (and largest inside a city), it is worth a visit.

I wonder now if London has more Apple stores than any other city? With Regent Street, Brent Cross and now Westfield/White City, that's as many/more than Manhattan I believe. Then Kingston, Lakeside and Bluewater would all count as Greater London by virtue of being in or around the M25. Can any large city beat 6 as of Nov 2008?

Tags: Apple Store, Apple, White City, London

Firewire dead? You could have read it here 3 years ago!

By a quirk of fate, the firewire -missing-from-MacBook-furore (one of many, many stories on this) got me looking back on my posts and finding one that I made on exactly this day 3 years ago! Sure, I perhaps expected it faster, and I don't take credit for predicting it's demise - I'd give the credit to the CEO of Wiebetech whose article I had read.

But the signs have been getting more ominous over the last few years - no firewire syncing of iPods, iSights built-in using USB, all new camcorders (effectively) using USB, most external disks supporting USB as the basics, and of course the fact that just about all PC's (laptop or desktop) don't offer it either, and most recently lack of firewire charging of iPods and iPhones.

It seems amazing to me that people are astonished by this after this time has elapsed and when it was quite clear so long ago that this was inevitable. I give good reasons in the article, and it is not that firewire was a technical failure - just a commercial also-ran. It's also fairly clear that perhaps excepting journalists in the field with small laptops and high end camcorders, the loss is not really anything other than an imagined problem by now.

In some ways, the Apple faithful should perhaps be chastising Apple for not including an e-sata interface on the MacBook Pros! Because, surely, Firewire is clearly not going to be around forever? Otherwise, these announcements seem great to me - very very solid improvements, and a real 13" MacBookPro at MacBook prices (well, minus firewire!).

Anyway, if you didn't read it here first, then perhaps you could have done! And, perhaps I should be digging through some old posts about Apple marketshare predictions and the Guardian/Observer getting it so wrong on calling the end of iPod!

Tags: Firewire, Apple, MacBook, MacBookPro

Wot? No Wi-fi on BlackBerry Storm?

According to here the BlackBerry Storm does not list wi-fi among it's specifications. I have seen no announcements in the mainstream press about this - mostly praising the device as an iPhone competitor. Did they just miss this, or do they consider it unimportant?

Surely, without Wi-Fi, data usage costs will be much higher for most users, and the utility of the device will be worse (not much good in non-3G areas for instance, and certainly something you won't want to use too much around the home and office).

Is anyone going to call this out?

Tags: BlackBerry, Apple, Storm, iPhone,
Wi-fi