Is it me, or does The Gadget Monkey seem completely besotted by Apple’s iPhone and Windows Media devices?

Too much PDA or Pocket PC stuff? Not enough camera, kidult toys, flash drives or PSP content?

A browse through our stats over the past two months since before the Apple/O2 iPhone debacle occurred shows that most visitors have been looking for iPhone news, addresses of O2 branches stocking the device, and so forth.

While this indicates that content has been in the right area, we’d love to know if there is anything you think has been missed. More coverage of the iPhone apps store, for instance?

Or you might want to read more on Microsoft’s Zune, or the Nintendo DS, or the latest DSLR or portable entertainment system?

We need to know. There’s an exciting new layout coming to The Gadget Monkey soon, as well as a new team of writers, so anything you want us to know, tell us!

Click below to leave a comment!

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Windows Mobile 6.1 may well be with us - but does that mean that all is well with what is on paper the worlds most flexible mobile operating system.

On paper maybe, but bolt-on fixes do not a successful OS make.  The Apple iPhone version of their OSX system has proved to be a winner, while Symbian, Palm and RIM are making in roads.  Despite a record number of WM devices sold in the last 18 months, their market share has depleted and with Google making a move into the mobile OS arena and bit players such as Samsung introducing their own, something has to change at Windows Mobile.

It’s a subject that Pocket PC Thoughts has given some time to.  Take a look at it this way: (more…)

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It would be pretty stupid of The Gadget Monkey to dismiss out of hand the success of the iPhone, and the impact that the device has made - not least on this site’s audience figures.

However regardless of the enforced hype/early launch (they’re not exactly short on stock in the UK at the moment, although that might be less to do with Apple and more to do with people tightening their belts) the last coupld of months has proved to demonstrate exactly what tis site was set up for.

On our About page, you can see:

…an independently-run portable hardware (gadget) review blog, intended for use both as a buyer’s guide and a record of attitudes and opinions to various products. In time, these attitudes and opinions will provide a unique reflection of prevailing attitudes to technology in the early 21st century.

We’ve already - as a gadget-centric society - gone bananas for the Apple iPhone 3G.  What is next?

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A slick new advertising campaign on UK television can only draw attention to the fact that not only was the iPhone 3G launch the worst organised event since Olaf the Hairy ordered 6000 viking helmets with the horns on the inside, the actual hardware itself isn’t up to scratch.

There are reports across the web of devices freezing, being remarkably delicate compared to the 2G predecessor on top of all the launch day blues with crashing networks and the like.  Better still are the vast array of failings in the device, such as the lack of a video camera and the persistent presence of a 2mp camera - not to mention the jaw dropping lack of a cut and paste function (a technology championed by Apple and ever more vital today).

To add insult to injury for Apple and their iPhone customers, the device has been compared to Microsoft’s Vista operating system amid claims that the device was rush-released.

Independent analyst Rob Enderle says. “A star product like the iPhone does a lot of great things for Apple, but when things go wrong, it can bring down the entire image of a company.”

What’s more, I’m sick to death of hearing about it.  I just want my busted Vario II back home.

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Tuesday’s list from o2

The shortage doesn’t seem to show any signs of being alleviated in the near future.

Store Name Address Opening Time Closing Time
Aberdeen - 98 Union Street 98 Union Street, ABERDEEN, Scotland, AB11 6BD 10:00 17:30
Ballymena Unit 71, Tower Centre, BALLYMENA, Northern Ireland, BT43 6AH 09:00 17:30
Barnet Unit 18, The Spires Shopping Centre, BARNET, Greater London, EN5 5XY 09:30 17:30
Belfast - Castle Lane 14-16 Castle Lane, BELFAST, Northern Ireland, BT1 5DA 09:00 17:30
Belfast - Castlecourt Unit 21, Castlecourt Shopping Centre, BELFAST, Northern Ireland, BT1 1DD 09:00 19:00 (more…)

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Again, via the o2 website

As of opening time Thursday 17th July

Branch Name Address

Aberdeen - 98 Union Street 98 Union Street, ABERDEEN, Scotland, AB11 6BD
Airdrie 28-30 Graham Street, AIRDRIE, Scotland, ML6 6BU
Belfast - Castle Lane 14-16 Castle Lane, BELFAST, Northern Ireland, BT1 5DA
Braehead 142 Braehead Shopping Centre, Kings Inch Road, GLASGOW, Scotland, G51 4BP
Cardiff 60 Queens Street, CARDIFF, Wales, CF10 2GQ
Corby 5 Spencer Court, CORBY, Northamptonshire, NN17 1NU (more…)

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* An excellent package, competitive across several price plans and in line with other phones and providers

* It does cool games, with Wii-like motion control

* Touchscreen, of course! What would have been the top reason last year has been superceded by those above, but it is still a revolutionary interface that continues to be mimicked

* Zoomed browsing. The web browsing ability of the iPhone is supreme

* It’s an MP3 player

* It’s an MP4 player

* It’s the most stylish gadget on the market

* Apple have allowed external developers to provide software for the device (although don’t expect any DRM-free MP3 players)

* It’s also a 2mp camera

* The Apple iPhone 3G is the must-have item of 2008

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Here’s a quickie for you!

Anyone wanting to log their displeasure - or read the experiences of others in trying to buy an iPhone 3G - should visit iWait…

At the very best it’ll make you feel better wallowing in the sad tales of others…

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It’s here at last - today Steve Jobs unveiled the long awaited next-generation iPhone that as expected is 3G ready - and will sell for as low as $199 US this is half the current price.  No news as yet on UK prices, however the O2 website is trumping July 11th as the UK release date.
E-mail features on the device have been overhauled with the aim of wooing business users, and the devices’ ability to run on faster networks will no doubt assist Apple in advancing their market share in Europe and Asia.  Other features are listed here - note the new device is thinner and lighter!

The price difference is significant - $199 US, versus $399 for the older-generation iPhone is cheap, but a 3G iPhone with twice the memory will cost $299 US.

Insane - but about time.

Question is - have Apple revised their business model for the European market?  $199 US is around £100, easily swallowed up by the price of an 18 month mobile contract…

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What price technology and share price success? Six men have died in 5 weeks after falling from cell phone towers and masts in the USA after a successful period of no fatalities between December and April.

Just as we’re happy to don clothes made by poorly paid workers in the Far East and South America, the sacrifice these men have made to allow us to carry on using our latest gadgets, just so their families get fed, is a terrible price to pay for the way we live.

From Wireless Estimator:

• April 12: A 34-year-old cell tower technician from Oklahoma man died after falling 150 feet from monopole antenna in Wake Forest, NC. It was the nation’s first death in 2008 of a communications worker falling from an elevated structure.
• April 14: A tower worker employed by Cornerstone Tower of Grand Island, Neb., fell to his death in Moorcroft, WY.
• April 15: A 38-year-old technician finished tightening the bolts on a guyed wireless tower in San Antonio, TX, “sort of lean[ed] back a little,” according to witnesses, and fell 225 feet to his death.
• April 17: North Carolina suffered its second cell tower fatality in a week when a 46-year-old Chesapeake, VA, man fell from a communications antenna in Frisco, NC.
• April 23: A Griffin, GA, man died from extensive head and chest injuries after falling 100 feet from a communications tower near Natchez, MS. He was reportedly hanging boom gates to a Cell South antenna when he fell.
• May 16: Guilford was rappelling down a load line attached to a 200 foot monopole when he stopped abruptly 140 feet up and bounced as if on a bungee cord, disengaging the carabiner that was secured to the tower

We need to deal with with this, not sweep it under the carpet.

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