...here.

Where "here" is an airport hotel in Zurich for some briefings. I've got a good view of the runways from up here - and I can even see a mountain.

Back home tonight.

It also gives me the opportunity to try out the new iPhone LJ client that arrived on the AppStore overnight...

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

Part instrument, part composition and part artwork, Bloom's innovative controls allow anyone to create elaborate patterns and unique melodies by simply tapping the screen. A generative music player takes over when Bloom is left idle, creating an infinite selection of compositions and their accompanying visualisations.

I've been spending some time with the iPhone 2.0 software, and I have to say I'm pleasantly surprised with many of the new enterprise features.

Setting up an iPhone to connect to an Exchange server was quick, and relatively painless. Apple's implementation of ActiveSync supports self-issued server certificates directly, and so smaller businesses can work the CEO's iPhone without having to set up an expensive third-part certificate. Each phone will have to be set up by hand, so you may prefer to stick with Blackberry or Windows Mobile for ease of management.

Sure the iPhone is cool, but how many people are buying a smartphone just to get Web access at work?

A lot of our friends who blog using LiveJournal (probably the most community-oriented blogging platform) have commented recently that they’re losing access to LiveJournal and other sites at work - so they’re buying a smartphone so they can carry on accessing them.

I keep wondering how much of the recent jump in smartphone Web browsing is down to phones being almost good enough, networks being almost fast enough and data plans being almost cheap enough - and how much of it is annoyed or paranoid people being forced to put their social network in their pocket to stay in touch during the working day.

You might not be able to tell from the advertisements, but the Apple iPhone isn't the first smartphone with a touch screen. HTC has been making Windows Mobile phones since they were PDAs with add-on GSM cards, under a variety of brands, and many of them have been touch screen phones. But the new HTC Touch is the closest thing to an iPhone running Windows Mobile, which means a huge range of applications are already available for it, and there's a CDMA version on the way this year. Has the little Taiwanese smartphone development house managed to beat Apple to the punch, or has it lost its touch?

HTC's new TouchFlo user interface is what prompts most of the comparisons with the iPhone. Certainly there are similarities, in that both are designed to work with your finger rather than a stylus. However that's where the similarities end. The iPhone uses a multi-touch screen that lets you use two fingers to zoom and detects when it's against your face or in your pocket. The Touch is still using the more common (and much cheaper) single-touch screens that have been a standard feature on PDA phones for a while.

The Onyx concept acts as a remote for your life. And because life is activity based, not application based, the concept illustrates how applications such as phone, GPS, music, teleconference and calendar events can work simultaneously. The Onyx concept does not base its experience on treating applications as separate windows or entities that work in isolation. Rather, the Onyx concept seamlessly integrates functions into activity based experiences.

More intelligent than conventional touch screens, the ClearPad accurately recognizes not only points and taps, but also shapes, complex gestures, and proximity to the user’s finger or cheek. This creates new possibilities such as assigning functions to two-finger taps, closing tasks by swiping an “X” over them, sending messages by swiping them off the screen, or answering a phone by holding it up to your cheek. The prototype phone uses a dynamic UI, where applications are layered and opened simultaneously, allowing a seamless flow of information between applications.

Thanks to marypcb for the link.