My iLiving Lifestyle

Having spent a couple of months with the iPhone 4 and the iPad I am happy to report a seamless integration into my online life. The iPhone has taken over from the previous 3G version without a hitch: it does everything at least as well as before but synchs to my iMac notably faster. The camera is far better with a zoom and flash and of course it takes HD movies! Something that gets overlooked is the brighter, sharper screen. But I still need glasses to use it properly, in fact I require them to function well on anything close up, a bit of a drag really this getting old and decrepit lark.And I love the iPad, when I can prise it away from my 13 year old son that is. He finds it excellent for games, primarily FIFA 11 the latest soccer title which is of course, the best yet… I use it for couch surfing and more and more for reading books of which there are a gathering tide of titles from everyone. As you can read PFDs too it really opens up the sofa as a place to inhabit on a long term basis.I had a play on an HTC Android phone recently, interesting to look at the opposition. The main thing that I took from the experience – apart from the deal breaker that it doesn’t have any Mac software (what are they thinking?!) – was to remind me the ease with which we can connect and synch our Apple gear, something we can occasionally take for granted. Try using a PC sometime if you want a headache, and try doing pretty basic things on a rival mobile phone. I suspect the same will be true of the myriad of tablet offerings that are slated to be released to compete with the iPad in the near future.We may pay slightly more than other mainstream products, but I think that all things being roughly equal in terms of technical specifications, Ease of Use becomes the most important factor. Apple are clear leaders in this field which is why we buy their products. I just want it to work – and look good too!