A fabulous iPhone weather app….

I love my iPhone apps – especially my weather apps, it probably has something to do with being British and our obsession with the weather.

I have one particular app that I rely on – WeatherPro – it is pretty accurate and has lots of useful data (well I think it’s useful). The data provider is also European based, so this helps greatly with it’s accuracy. The downside? It’s rather monotone in design (very blue and yellow) so is not particularly pretty to look at!

But, every so often an app appears in the app store that moves things along and is amazing. When it does it has to be added to my iPhone – Flipboard was a classic example, it is lovely to use and look at, but up until now there hasn’t been a weather app of the same calibre.

Until now that is – Yahoo have just released their new weather app, and it is just lovely, pure eye candy, and it has lots of data all presented in a gorgeous way. The opening screen presents a simple set of data (current temperature, description of the current weather etc) over a photo of the weather location.

Scrolling down provides an hourly scrollable forecast, a five day forecast, wind speeds (shown by animated revolving windmills), plus a radar map of the area to show rainfall etc.

But my favourite bit is at the bottom of the page – an animated graphic that shows the time from sunrise to sunset, and the current position of the sun in its arc across the sky!

The app also uses photos from Flicker which relate to the location you are looking at (randomly chosen as far as I can tell) – it is amazing and makes the Apple weather app – which I haven’t used for years as it is so bad – look even more rubbish!

It is worth downloading – do it!

 

Two sides to everything……

I was told many years ago that your first contact with someone is the most important, it sets their opinion of you. Hence in business your receptionist is perhaps the most important person in the firm. This goes for both face to face contact and phone contact…..

So why do companies insist on using faceless call centres to deal with both new and existing clients?

My ‘history’ with Virgin Media is well documented on this blog, so I won’t go back over old ground. However I have again this week had dealings with one of their engineers who attended to install a new modem (or ‘super hub’ as they call them). He was very efficient, polite and quick – I couldn’t find anything to complain about (strange I know) – and this has always been my experience of their staff on the ground – simply brilliant!

But, to get an engineer you have to go through the call centre! On this occasion they had given the engineer the wrong house number (I corrected it when he called to say he was 10 minutes away). It had taken me four people to get to someone who could deal with my enquiry – and I was returning their call asking me to contact them!

So Virgin – as usual, brilliant staff who actually deal with your clients on site. But your call centre gets worse!

Why can’t you see this?

 

Google reader is to die…..

This is not good news from my point of view – RSS feeds may be a bit ‘old school’ but I find it a great way to scan the news and any websites that I am interested in. And Google Reader served me well over the last few years as a way of aggregating all this data – that is until this coming July when Google are killing it.

RSS readers take raw feeds of data—headline, text, timestamp, etc.—and display that information in a stripped-down interface along with many other feeds, which is what makes them so efficient.

Now this is all very sad for people like me who like to keep an eye on things in an easy to scan manner, but the real problem is the effect it will have on countries that censor the Internet. Sadly Google are going to be cutting links to the outside world for many parts of the world.

Less obvious is how many RSS readers, including Google’s, serve as anti-censorship tools for people living under oppressive regimes. That’s because it’s actually Google’s servers, located in the US or another country with uncensored internet, that accesses each feed. So a web user in say, Iran just needs access to google.com/reader in order to read websites that would otherwise be blocked.

Not a good move Google…..

 

When to and when not to tweet…

Twitter has become an integral part of our society, it seems that there are a huge number of users who have signed up – quite a few people I know are ‘watchers’ rather than active tweeters. Certainly at work we have an active account and I know many of my colleagues regularly use it to publicise deals or events. In the correct hands it can be quite effective.

However, as with anything that has such a massive readership you need to keep an eye on what you tweet – and in responding you need to be accurate and understand the original tweet…..

So I couldn’t help smiling when I saw the news about David Lammy, the MP for Tottenham who was outraged by the BBC’s ‘racist headline’ about the smoke from the Vatican’s chimney being black or white. He was in the House of commons and misread the original headline…….

His tweet was swift and decisive.

I did think his subsequent tweet when he realised his mistake was spot on as well however.

This highlights two things – firstly you should think before you tweet and secondly MP’s shouldn’t tweet in the commons!

 

Not great being proved right…….

As a family we have ‘suffered’ more than most in relation to mobile phone theft. My stepdaughter has had two iPhones stolen now over the last 6 months, both in Nottingham when on a night out. The first was taken from her in Rock City which apparently is well known as a hot spot for this crime (they are working with the police on the issue I gather).

The second was in a pub in town – in both cases the phone was taken from a closed bag – so we assumed it was professional criminals.

This has now been confirmed by information released recently by the police that shows that teams of criminals are descending on our cities to carry out this crime – to then export the phones abroad (where they are not locked and can be used or sold).

Yes this is a problem the police and venues need to address, but is it not more of an issue for the manufacturers and networks? The ability to reuse the phones abroad is a massive ‘loophole’ in the supposed security provided by blacklisting phones. The networks need a world wide system to block phones – and they need it now.

 

A case of ‘cart before the horse’?

What happens when you put a package delivery service together with a mobile phone operator? Chaos!

Over the last few weeks I have been intrigued by the actions of the delivery company Yodel – they tried to deliver a package to me – but I wasn’t expecting anything and it wasn’t anyone’s birthday for months. So what could it be…….

I decided to wait until it had been attempted to be delivered three times, so that I could then collect it from the depot (in Loughborough). Unfortunately the third delivery attempt was not notified to us by a failed delivery card (although according to the Yodel website it occurred when we were in the house!). So the package ended up being returned to the sender.

A call to Yodel confirmed the sender was Virgin Media – I am a Virgin customer so I rang them to ask what they had been trying to send to me – and why I had not been notified! I was told that nothing had been sent and that they would have advised me if they were sending something out to me.

Fair enough – this was a few days ago, and I decided to let it rest. And then today I received the attached email saying they had sent something to me. It is also related to a safety recall. It appears that my current modem power supply could overheat and catch fire (as confirmed in the link they sent me).

So I am not impressed with Virgin for a number of reasons;

1. They didn’t tell me the item was on its way to me

2. This is a safety recall – surely it should be dealt with in a more professional manner?

3. A text? really the best way to deal with it?

And as far as Yodel are concerned – next time you ‘deliver’ at 8.30 in the evening perhaps it would be worth actually coming to the house? I might even be in!

 

Fingers crossed – “problem sorted”

Regular readers of my ongoing ‘experiences with mobile providers’ will be aware of my recent run in with T-Mobile. You will be pleased to hear that the matter has now been brought to a satisfactory conclusion. This is great news, but it is rather tiring having to resort to an email to the CEO to get that resolution!

The gentleman I dealt with in the CEO’s office at T-Mobile was very helpful, polite and most importantly was in a position to deal with my problem quickly and efficiently. So, I am grateful for his actions, but really rather aggrieved that it always takes this level of input from me to get things sorted.

Now I accept that these are very large organisations, but that is no excuse for the quality of service failing. I cannot help but point the finger at call centres – they are a great way of saving money, and can work for basic issues. But, if the matter in hand is even slightly ‘off piste’ they just can’t deal with it.

At the end of the day it all comes down to the relationship between the provider and the customer – all business is based on relationships and trust – the banks have learnt this again the hard way over the last few years, and we shouldn’t forget this.

The man from EE did suggest to me that they might be having a ‘few issues’ with T-Mobile since they took them over – I would say that is an understatement – but at least there was an acceptance of an issue – perhaps there is hope for our telecoms providers after all?

 

This did make me laugh!

I am an Apple fan – anyone who reads this blog will be aware of that already. I do however like any tech – if its clever and works I don’t mind who makes it. My first entry to ‘gizmos’ was British – Psion PDA’s, they were fantastic and at the time world leaders, sadly time moves on….. and Apple make the best tech currently.

I have looked at the new Microsoft entry to the tablet market – the surface – it looks OK but the only time I have managed to actually get my hands on one in a store (John Lewis in Nottingham), it didn’t want to work properly! The much vaunted keyboard / cover didn’t seem to work very well at all – now this was probably a one-off, but how many not working iPad’s have you come across in a similar situation?

So I suppose the attached press clipping didn’t come as a great surprise to me – someone breaks into the Microsoft campus and steals Apple gear only! This does sadden me as Apple need some competition to keep them sharp, currently this is only coming from Samsung it would appear. Perhaps Microsoft will eventually move back into a ‘good place’, it just doesn’t feel likely at this time.

 

More ‘joy’ with a mobile provider!

I appear to be developing a bit of a ‘thing’ with mobile providers – I don’t know if I expect too much from them, or whether they are just all useless – but they really don’t ‘cut the mustard’ as far as I am concerned!

My latest problem is with T Mobile (Now called EE it appears). My stepdaughters iPhone was stolen and is not insured with T Mobile but via Endsleigh Insurance (who I would add have been brilliant – highly recommended!) To sort out her insurance claim we need two documents from T Mobile – the first to confirm the blacklisting of the iPhone, the second a proof of purchase. One would not expect this to be a problem – it has actually been a nightmare and I have had to resort to emailing the CEO of EE (Olaf Swantee). Rather than explain the story the email is set out below. I have no idea if I will get a reply – I hope I do – but I am not holding my breath!

Dear sir

I am sorry to have to contact you, but I am running out of alternatives. I am attempting to obtain a proof of ownership and blacklisting document for my stolen iPhone which is on contract with T-Mobile (but not insured through yourselves).

I first requested the documents on the 17th December, your call centre in the Philippines confirmed the documents would be mailed to me and I would get them within 5 days. I was also told that one of them would be emailed to the EE store on Clumber Street in Nottingham for me to collect the next day.

On arrival at the store no such email had been received, as I had made a special trip into town I was not amused (and out of pocket due to parking) however I shrugged it off as the documents would be in the post.

Roll forward to Christmas Eve – nothing in the post yet so I rang again. This time I was told that one of the documents was only done the day before (not on the 17th as I had been assured previously). I asked for them to be emailed to me which I was told was not possible – on hearing this I asked to speak to a manager. As it was lunchtime in the Philippines there were none available, so a ring back was arranged between 1pm and 2pm.

As you will probably be guessing now, this call did not arrive, so I called again at around 5pm(hopefully not tea time in the Philippines) again to be told to expect a call back.

You guessed it – no call back again!

As it was Christmas Day and then Boxing day next I did not call again – as no doubt there would be no managers available on such ‘holidays’. So I called again today (27th) and have been promised a call back again as soon as the previous call the manager was taking was complete. That was over 20 minutes ago! All I can assume is that you have many disgruntled customers who have lots to complain about!

Please can you sort this out for me? I am a reasonable man, but this is beginning to try my patience rather!

I look forward to hearing back from you at your earliest convenience.

Regards

Simon

I have received some contact from EE via twitter which may prove fruitful, I will update this as soon as I have more news!

 

Twitter or 999?

This is an interesting question – should the fire services take emergency calls (currently 999) via social media sites like Twitter? Last week the London Fire Brigade said it was considering such a move, allowing people to tweet emergencies instead of dialling 999.

Previously it has advised against using social media to make the service aware of fires as it is not monitored 24 hours a day. But it has acknowledged that the increasing proliferation of smart phones means they might actually get a swifter response.

First introduced in the London area on 30 June 1937, the UK’s 999 number is the world’s oldest emergency call service. The system was introduced following a fire on 10 November 1935 in a house on Wimpole Street in which five women were killed. A neighbour had tried to telephone the fire brigade and was so outraged at being held in a queue by the Welbeck telephone exchange that he wrote a letter to the editor of The Times, which prompted a government inquiry (even in those days).

In recent large fires in London the fire service have actually asked via twitter and other social media sites for local reports, photos and videos of fires to help them judge their initial response, and apparently it has enabled them to deal with incidents more effectively. So perhaps this is the way forward?

After all, when 999 calls were first introduced to summon assistance everyone apparently said it would never work!