Woogie Review

     The Griffin Woogie is an iPod touch or iPhone case with a built in amplified speaker, all packaged in a soft toy:

Griffin Woogie

     I've had a Woogie for a few months now, and have some fairly mixed feelings towards it. I think the case is very cute, and my 2.x year old loves it - as a soft toy.  As a case and powered speaker designed for toddler though, it's got some shortcomings.

There's a speaker in there.  Somewhere.

     My first issue with the case is the volume of the speaker.  It's pretty quiet.  I didn't expect it to be loud (don't want to hurt the kiddies ears) but it's not even as loud as the built in speaker on my iPhone 4.  It's really too soft for in-car use, which was one of the main reasons I bought it.  Maybe the low volume is meant to lull kids to sleep?

Non removable battery box.

     The battery box and other hardware are non removable, which means that there's no chance of dropping the Woogie into the washing machine.  You can wipe the outside with a damp cloth and that's about it.  To be fair, the case has been remarkably good at shrugging off small spills, but I still think it's a big oversight on a plush product designed for children.
     The switch to turn the Woogie on and off is also at the wrong end of the battery box.  Meaning that you need to fully remove the box from its pouch whenever you wish to turn the Woogie on or off.  You need to do that a lot as well, otherwise the batteries go flat, it's got some serious phantom power drain issues.  I expected that you could leave the Woogie turned on and it would only use batteries when playing music, or plugged into an iPod, but that's not the case at all.  If you don't turn it off at the switch the batteries will be flat in a day or two.

Tidy little slot for inserting battery box.

Battery box halfway into its pouch.

     On the positive side, the battery box does tuck tidily away into a neat little pouch.  And while I think the audio plug should have been located inside the iPod/iPhone pouch the cord isn't really long enough to be a problem.  Before I got the Woogie I was concerned that it might be a choking/strangling hazard, or that the cord would just get caught on things and yank out of the iPod all the time.  That's really not the case though, it's never been accidentally removed in use.


     I can live with most of the products shortcomings, but the lack of volume from the speaker is really disappointing.  Speaker volume should be part of the basic functionality of this thing, but it's really its achilles heel.  I think it's a great idea but it just wasn't thought through that thoroughly.  I still use it a fair bit - but mainly with a first gen iPod touch which wouldn't have any sound otherwise.
     Cute and well manufactured, but not that well designed.

ToughSkin is Coming!

     Yay!  Speck have finally released a version of their fantastic ToughSkin case for the iPhone 4.  See the Speck site for details.
     The ToughSkin cases are pretty unique, they offer a great deal of impact protection along with super chunky styling.  These cases look like you could, in a pinch, use them to retread your car tyres.
     On the 3GS version the silicone was support by a plastic skeleton frame that you clipped onto your phone first.  This skeleton was designed with little protrusions which in turn held the silicon case on nice and snuggly.  It was a neat system and worked really well - none of the saggy bulgy squishy loose problems that I have with the Otter Box Defender which is currently on my phone.  The Defender is also not very grippy - which is a major reason I like to have chunky silicone cases. I thought Otter Box were meant to make premium products?  Though having said that, it seems the current Defender case now incorporates a substrate, similar to the ToughSkin.  My "first generation" one was purely silicone.
     It seems like the ToughSkin for iPhone 4 has taken this skeleton/substrate design one step further - the  ToughSkin "skeleton" is actually a complete hard case for the phone now, which could be handy.  The downside of a chunky super sticky case is seriously reduced pocketability.  The case also comes with a belt clip/holder which doubles as a stand - it works well but sorry, I'm not a phone belt clip kind of person.
     Very happy that they've finally brought this market - can't wait to get my hands on one.  It's taken a lot longer than I expected - I've got an email from Speck customer service from June 2010 saying it'd be on the market in "about 5 weeks".  5 weeks, 7 months - whatever. ;)

Bioluminescent Snails!

     How cool is this?  A glowing green snail!  Hinea Brasiliana.  Ok, so it's only a sea snail, not something you'll find in your backyard.  And this snippet of info disputes the green bit - but hey, a blue-white light is pretty cool as well.
     It's theorised that they use their bioluminescence as a defence mechanism, lighting up when disturbed to either try and scare away predators or simply light them up so something bigger and badder again can eat what's attacking them.
     The mechanism they use to light their shells up is pretty neat as well.  The shell actually acts like a light transmitter/splitter, picking up the light from a small bioluminescent organ and spreading it throughout the entire shell.  Sort of like one of those plastic light tubes, where a light shone on one end illuminates the whole thing.  See Fibre Flare for an example of what I mean.
     Even more intriguing, the mechanism by which the shell transmits light is wavelength sensitive - it only lights up when hit with a greeny-bluey light, it won't transmit red for example.
     Neat little thing, but not quite enough to take the coveted "favourite snail" position away from the Otways Carnivorous Black Snail, Victophanta Compacta:

     Sure, this one doesn't glow - but you have to admire the persistence of something that slow deciding it's going to live by hunting other critters.  (Unfortunately they're endangered, so it's not working out so well for them.)


Original Article: BBC

3 mobile phones no longer roaming to Telstra?

     Over the past few weeks (possibly months, time gets away on you....) I've noticed some real issues with my mobile phone which is on the 3 network.  I used to love the service.  I got cheap calls and very cheap data rates while around the city, and when I went to the country it just roamed onto Telstra's network - which undoubtedly has the best coverage in the country.   It was a great deal as far I was concerned.
     Recently though, I've noticed that my phone not getting any coverage whilst in the country any more.  The first couple of times this happened I just put it down to something glitchy going on with the network.  But three trips to the country without any reception made me start digging a little deeper.
     I took a look at 3's mobile coverage map and noticed that it's looking much sparser than previous versions.  Especially Telstra's, which they used to roam to when I signed my contract with 3.  Ugh, seems like I'm starting to personally see the first effect of the 3/Vodafone "merger".  Abysmal support for anywhere outside of major cities, a massive degradation on their prior service.  Yay 3.
     Needless to say I've taken it up with 3.  I'm sure there's nothing they can do to improve their service, but I do expect them to unlock my phone and release me from any early exit contract fees as they're no longer providing the service I signed up for.  Thankfully Telstra pricing has become far more competitive in the year or so since I signed my 3 contract.
     I personally find it highly immoral that they've made this change without even notifying me.  People rely upon their phones for emergency contact - what they've done is not just an annoyance, it's a safety issue.
     Hopefully I hear back from 3 quickly and don't need to take it up with the telecommunications industry ombudsman.

Apple TV 2 4.1 Firmware Update Failure

     So I just went to update the firmware on my Apple TV 2.  The process was very straight forward, looking very similar to doing an iPhone firmware update.  Unfortunately it failed and my sleek little media streamer is now a sleek little white led flashing device.  It's rather disturbing to see that big "plug this thing into itunes!" symbol on your TV screen.
     Ok, so the firmware update failed, no big deal.  Maybe that's why apple makes you connect iPhones for an iOS update rather than doing over the air (even over wifi) updates.  I thought I'd just plug it into iTunes, the new firmware would download and away I'd go.  Not too much of a problem.  (Though I guess I'll need to drag the power cable out from behind my TV as well, sigh...)
     Now here's the really unfortunate bit, which Apple should be held accountable for.  They've chosen to put a micro usb socket on the Apple TV.  I've got no problem with them choosing the latest and greatest connector version - by all accounts the micro usb design is more durable than the much more common mini usb.  (Though I'd hope I don't need to plug my Apple TV into a usb connection enough for durability to be an issue!) But micro usb is still in it's very early stages.  I don't have any other devices that require a micro usb cable.  I'd expect that many people don't.  There's certainly nothing else in the Apple ecosystem that needs one.  Yet Apple didn't see fit to include one in the box.
     That's incredibly galling.  It means I've got a (temporarily) bricked device with no way of recovering it until I can get to the store and buy a cheap usb cable.  Way to fail, Apple.

     For those interested, my Apple TV connects to the internet via 802.11n from an Airport Extreme, running with WPA encryption.  I've seen some anecdotal evidence which states that the firmware update is more likely to fail over WiFi.  I'd recommend you don't attempt the update until you've got a cable on hand, just in case.

UPDATE:  Once I got a micro usb cable and plugged the Apple TV into iTunes the update went fine.  All updates since this one (up to 4.3.1 at the minute) have, thankfully, worked via wireless.