whatleydude

I started writing this post last weekend, before the big Facebook sale was announced, as I wanted to talk about – in light of the recent Android-owners backlash – I use (and enjoy) Instagram. It’s funny now though how that very same backlash has not only continued but also now includes all things Facebook. Incredible. C’est la vie.

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I love Instagram. There, I said it.
I also don’t own an iPhone.

So how?

Anyone who’s been reading this blog for any amount of time knows that I am a Nokia fan. My current phone du jour is the Nokia Lumia 800 and before I now I have waxed lyrical about its predecessors the N8 and the N86. Similarly, regular readers will also know that I am an iPad-owner also. Of that too, I am also a fan.

I am a social media junkie; If something is new and shiny, I take a(n educated and measured) interest and, in all honesty, the lure of Instagram was too much.

The next logical step? Install Instagram onto the iPad.

While there isn’t an official Instagram iPad app, the iPhone version doubles up just fine. Problem solved, right? Well, yes but that’s not enough. I own an iPad 2 y’see and, while it does have an onboard camera, you may as well give a packet of crayons to a pack of blind monkeys for all the use it’ll do you. A decent image it produces, not.

The great thing about Nokia devices however, is that the top end bad boys tend to come packing high-end mobile camera technology. Which is great, and as 99% of the images I snap with my Lumia end up on my Flickr account – all I need is a method of getting those images into Instagram.

Well, that’s where Flickr Studio comes in -

I can browse my Flickr photostream and download the images I want/need onto my iPad (you can see where this is going can’t you) which closes the circle nicely -

Lumia – >; Flickr
Flickr – iPad
iPad – >; Instagram

Yes, it’s a lengthy process and yes it’s not exactly ideal either but like I said, I like the network and I like the people I follow there. I installed Instagram onto my Nexus S a couple of days ago and I’ve hardly used it. I prefer the iPad experience. Plus, my pictures are infinitely better.

Since the Android release last week it’s almost too funny how much the elitist iPhone-owners have spat back at the network [EDIT: even more so now after the sale]. Apparently some slighted iPhone-Instagrammers are even flocking to new services to escape the influx of ‘tasteless’ Android-ers. Hilarious.

I’ve enjoyed being a part of the Instagram community and have never uploaded an iPhone-created picture, ever. That makes me happy inside and that’s how I use (and why I love) Instagram.

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PS. As I said earlier this week, post-sale, Instagram will be fine -

;

@DominicTravers I was thinking about that this morning, of the 30m+ users that Instagram has, they can’t *all* be Hipsters… it’ll be fine.

— James Whatley (@Whatleydude) April 10, 2012

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Or lack thereof.

First, in 2009, this -

[Bungee jumping, shot on a Nokia N86]

Then, in 2010, this -

[A rollercoaster review of the N97 Mini, shot with the N97 Mini]

So far so good…

Straight after that, we got to work on this -

[Shoot what you like with the Nokia N8, shot on the Nokia N8]

With the winners being invited along to this -

[A zero G flight, shot on the Nokia N8]

Great stuff.

Later, in 2011, this appeared -

[A rollercoaster review 'unboxing' of the SGSII, shot with a ?]

Brilliant? Yes. Familiar? Slightly.

Admittedly they went one better, with this -

[A skydive review 'unboxing' of the SGSII, shot with a ?]

Well done.

Imagine my surprise when, today in 2012 this appeared on TV for HTC  -

[A free-fall fashion shoot with the HTC One, shot with a ?]

Amazing. Not.

Seriously, three years of this now… come along guys, at least try to do something different. It genuinely doesn’t matter who had the idea first or even who managed to push it to the next level. All we’re asking is for some originality.

Samsung was blatant, HTC is just plain late.

And while it’s fair to say, admittedly, everything is a remix; if Sony can create something new, you can too.

-

Do. Better.

Five things of note for the week ending Friday, April 6th 2012

1. Paper by Fifty Three
I’ve already blogged about discovering this app, but if you haven’t taken a look yet (it’s for the iPad) then I recommend you do. I love it and have been sketching away like there’s no tomorrow since installing… Unsurprisingly, there’s a theme.

2. Awesome New Music

New Childish Gambino
New Nicki Minaj
New Kanye West
And this full album stream from Alabama Shakes is worth a lisen too.
Enjoy 

3. Comic book stuff
I’ve been reading Project Rooftop for some time now, and it is an ace source of fantastic artwork on some my favourite characters. Their remit is to highlight and drive the craft of redesigning comic book characters that you know and love and generally showcase some gorgeous work.

This past week has been no different, but these two redesigns, Ninja Turtles and X-Men respectively, stood out particularly.

Donatello, Michelangelo, Raphael and Leonardo all getting the redesign treatment. Given the myriad of interpretations the Turtles have been through over the years, giving them a fresh take is no easy task. But this effort is actually brilliant. I want to see more… And guess what, you can! Full set available here

This one stands out for two reasons. First, it’s the original X-Men (who are still one of the best teams to date) and two, the version of Ice-Man is sweet. I’ve not seen an ice-as-armour version before and well, no pun intended, it’s just too damn cool for words. You can check out the full set over on P:R. It’s worth a look, definitely.

What do you think?

4. The Lumia 900
The Nokia Lumia 900 launches this week and, while it is only really a bigger version of the Lumia 800 (which I’ve been rocking and enjoying since late last year), it’s intriguing to me as it’s the big N’s first serious play in the USA since, well – since forever really. To say it’s make or break time might be an understatement, but I think they might actually have winner on their hands. Only time will time.

This Read Write Web piece made me grin mind -

“There have been rumors that Nokia is paying AT&T to make sure that every rep uses the Lumia 900 as a personal device. The idea is that consumers trust sales reps to steer them in the right direction. Even as an advanced early adopter and mobile technology reporter, I often trust sales reps to tell me what the best device is and what is coming out (sometimes I quiz them to see how much they actually know about the ecosystem because I am that type of jerk).”

Heh, you’re not on your own there chap… 

I’d like to have a play with the Lumia 900 at some point (honestly, I haven’t played with one yet!) and I’m sure it’d be great, but what interests me more is what’s coming next. We all know the Lumia range is merely a proof-of-concept device (and a very nice range it is too) but I want to see what the tech-heads in Finland are going to do next. Now they’ve proven they can design gorgeous Windows phones, let’s see some of that innovation that they’re also famous for. Exciting times ahead, both for Nokia itself as well as the industry as a whole.

5. I made the Slovenian FT

Amazing

Bonuses: Dan Goodall got his blog back online, go read it; Fish: a tap essay is one of the best things I’ve come across for a long time and finally, I’ve been looking at the image below nearly every day – it’s just beautiful. 

Until next time –

Yesterday was a fairly busy day, if you’re a tech-head like me at least; Google+ rolled out their brand pages, the Nokia N9 started updating to the much-heralded mega-fix firmware and, for those that needed it, Spotify dropped onto the Windows Phone Marketplace.

Google+ I’ve covered already (no really, what is it for?), the N9 update I am yet to apply and as for Spotify? Well, what can I say?

Choosing Windows Phone as the last, great, mobile operating system to support, Spotify prepped itself for the promised masses yesterday afternoon (after a preview some six months ago) and boy, is it a beautiful app to use.

First, some caveats:

• Spotify mobile is only available to premium subscribers
• Premium is £9.99 a month. A small price to pay to NEVER PAY FOR ANY MUSIC EVER AGAIN.
• I’ve tried Zune* and, until Spotify dropped, that was fine (if a little alien).

So, to the app itself.

The good stuff:

• WP7 app design: oh my God this app is gorgeous.
• Scrolling, sharing, syncing: all of it rocks my face off.
• It’s Spotify, on my mobile.

The stuff needed in the next update:

• Background colour options
  Windows Phone offers either ‘dark’ or ‘light’, white on black or black on white respectively. Spotify should either match its app’s skin accordingly or at least offer it up as an in-app option. Strangely, while the app offers the light variation, the desktop client offers dark.
• Last.fm integration please
  Syncing tracks listened to in online mode and remembering then uploading my tracks listened to in offline mode.
• Offline playlist filters
  Yeah, love that but, any chance that you filter the playlists by DOWNLOADED FIRST? Having to scroll through all of them in order is a pain.
• Album art on lockscreen
  I mentioned I was on Zune before, one thing that the WP music player does nicely is show album covers on the lock screen while playing music. It’s a nice touch and adds to the overall experience. Spotify should do this too. See below.

 Florence playing through Zune

 Florence playing through Spotify

Overall, great work guys, it’s an awesome service and I’m a big fan. Having it running on my Lumia makes me a very happy bunny indeed. Good job.

Please, continue to iterate, improve and impress.

Danke,
James.

*I signed up for a Zune Pass about a day after first getting my Windows Phone. I like that it covers my Xbox too, but I already have Last.fm there. So it was only really the mobile music angle I needed to cover. Now Spotify is here, I just don’t need it.

Today I created a folder on my Mac marked ‘DKR’.

That is all.

[Private post - made public Dec 14th, 2011]

Splitscreen: A Love Story from JW Griffiths on Vimeo.

This beautiful video is being blogged all over the place at the moment, and for good reason. Splitscreen is the winner of the recent Nokia Shorts competition (disclaimer – 1000heads worked on this project for the big N) and, work associations aside, the video itself is gorgeous.

The winners (along with the other finalists) should be proud; it’s a great project and the output has been fantastic.

Well done to all involved.

Nokia and Microsoft have announced a strategic partnership that will see Nokia hardware running Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 software. It’s about eco-systems and, with Google’s Android growing ever-larger, it’s also about a stronger – much more strategic – industry play.

The Nokia community, one that I’ve been a part of for many years (and now spend my days helping to manage), is obviously still in shock. The announcement has been out for 20mins and between ‘MURDER!’, ‘I told you so!‘ and ‘What have you done?!‘ – there are many out there still waiting for their questions to be answered:

- What about Meego?
- Where does this leave Symbian?
- What about the current roadmap?
- When can we expect the first Nokia/WP7 device to ship?

I imagine, over the course of today all of these questions, and more, will slowly be answered; the actual speech from Elop himself isn’t scheduled for another couple of hours and I’m fairly certain that what we’re seeing is just the start of major disruption both internally [for both Microsoft & Nokia employees] and externally for the market as a whole.

For now, I’ve got a couple of Social Media Week events to attend this morning so, I’m going to re-read my WP7 review from last year and spend my tube journey wondering if the bad points I highlighted could quite easily be ticked off by an awesome piece of Nokia hardware…

We are living in interesting times.

Are we over water now? I think so. At least, we should be. I guess we’ve been up for an hour now, maybe longer. My toes hurt.

Damn shoes.

I love my job. Six seats to my right a couple of competition winners sit happily drinking beer, looking forward to their prize; two VIP red blue carpet tickets to the Tron: Legacy ‘World Premiere’ in Hollywood.

I was at the London one last weekend. That was cool. Although Patrick probably nailed it best when he said “Premieres are fun but it’s essentially like going to the cinema with a suit on” – Yes Pat, just like that (if you ignore the Hollywood superstars arriving around you and of course the free popcorn.. that’s always a winner. Let’s not forget that).

LA. Again.

I’ve been there before y’see, although last time was a holiday, this time it’s for work. I think I’ve managed to wangle some down time over the coming week, with both Sunday evening and Monday daytime currently cleared for catching up with some of my favourite Californians. Matt & Jen namely and probably Jeb too, if there’s time.

I love the internetz for stuff like this. Having such a large global network means that more often than not there is always someone to see or meet. Some might see that as an annoyance (and to an extent, I can understand why), however if I ever want to completely escape… utterly switch off… then I know how to do that too.

Obviously you wouldn’t know when those times happen because I don’t actually talk about them. But they are there. Gently. Flowing back and forth.  Slowly. Like a soft breath on the wind…

But I like people. I love people. Even the inconsiderate German chap in front of me on this flight (seat thrown back, feet pushing against the wall in front) I love them all.

Well, I try…