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As we sailed out on the ferry leaving Poole Harbour, the first thing I noticed was how far the O2 signal stretched. It seemed I could still twitpic at no extra cost (on the iPhone data bolt on) quite a long way away from land.
The second thing worth noting was that when the signal did die, the boat’s own GSM mast kicked in and (voice) roaming was available during the full 4 hour crossing.
As I have Twitter setup to use the free SMS service, I was still receiving txt updates from the people I had selected to monitor (plus any DM’s) I could also tweet by sending a reply to the SMS number – though I assume the cost of sending will be on roaming charges.
Although I have been informed that I would be paying for a proportion of the cost of any incomming calls when abroad, I have not read or been informed of any charges for incomming SMS?
Once we landed I got SMS messages from O2 detailing 35p for outgoing calls, 18p for incomming, 11p to send SMS and £3 per MB for data.
As most of you will know, the key thing is to turn roaming data off on the iPhone. There have been loads of stories of massive data bills when returning from holidays. The iPhone eats data and even does it without you knowing – so turn roaming data off when not in use.
When I fired up the netbook with the Three dongle I got a message that roaming data would be charged at £1.25 per mb. Much better than O2 but still pricey – especially if some application decides it needs to perform a background update!
You can buy a roaming data bolt on with O2 before you leave and this brings the price down. I think 50mb with O2 was £42. You need to reset your useage monitor and keep checking it to ensure you don’t go over. I would also turn roaming off and on as required to ensure it’s not left downloading upates or voicemail (you can get voicemail by dialing instead)
That being said, the iPhone is actually brilliant at conserving data once in an app. For example, the Facebook app is very light weight with no downloading of adverts or full pages of crap. You just get the important data. Twitter apps can be set to store avatars locally and only update the latest tweets rather than a full page refresh. Even Google maps has been excellent on data use – and being in an unknown location is a perfect opportunity to fully use the Local Search features. On the other hand I’ve found that using Safari on the iPhone is ripping through data as it loads full res pages for zooming into. Maybe there is a text only browsing app?
One thing I will say, is that I’m actually impressed with the ammount of notification and messages I’m getting about costs. Once apon a time you would be totally in the dark and just cross all fingers that it wasn’t going to cost an arm and a leg when you got home (and it always did)
The other thing I was looking out for was WiFi hotspots. I found two signals on the site I’m on and have purchased 120 minutes for 6 Euros – the 120 minutes never expire so you just log off and come back on later. I think this is pretty good as some want a load of money for a 24hr slot when in reality, I can work offline and only login to post data or download email.
But for now, I’m writing this offline on the iPhone in landscape mode and will connect to roaming data and publish this with a minimum amount of data used. OK, it won’t look fancy, but it may just be slightly informative? 
Au Revoir
– Post from my iPhone using BlogPress
– Oh, and by the way, I’m writing these on an iPhone – if I had a spell checker I’d use it 
Here is a screen grab from the Wordpress app:
It’s quite fast and easy to use with folders for local drafts. The photo uploaded straight to the ammobox server and exists in the uploads folder. The app is free and it does everything you would need and even has landscape mode. The only downside I can see so far is that it only supports WordPress … But it’s free!
Here is a screen grab from BlogWriter Lite:
Firstly, it has adverts – but it is the free version (full is £1.19) it supports multiple services such as Blogger, Live Spaces, WordPress and others. Setup was quick to the ammobox blog and it did what I wanted. I couldn’t test the photo upload as the lite version doesn’t support it. But for some reason it doesn’t feel slick and I’m sure the text is blurred?!
Here is a screen grab from iBlogger:
Firstly, this app is £5.99 and that was a real put off for me. It supports most blog services but strangely does not support photo upload to Blogger (yet) it also does not support landscape mode which I feel is a must for mass typing on the iPhone with any speed and accuracy. However, it is slick and is under active development, so buying it now could mean more features in the future.
It has nice support for adding URLs and also a neat button to add a GPS location link. For some reason it would not post a photo to ammobox as it gave a message of ’server busy’ each time I tried. The ‘text only’ test flew up with no problems so this may just be a glitch on the server side.
Here is a screen grab from BlogPress:
As I am writing this post on BlogPress you may of already gathered it is my favourite. At £1.79 it’s a steal, it supports multiple services and I have already used it on my own Blogger blog. As you can see from above it allows multiple photos to be added and uploads them to Picasa. I know this won’t float everyone’s boat, but personally I like my images in an album that might not be on my own server – I think it comes from my flickr addiction.
I’m finding it surprisingly easy to type on the keyboard with two thumbs in lanscape mode – I’m actually finding it easier than my netbook as that has tiny keys that are also difficult to see in the dark (I can’t fully touch type) holding the iPhone this way is quite comfortable.
So I’m going to come to a quick conclusion tonight – I will be using BlogPress for a while when mobile blogging and I’ll let you know how I get on. If anyone has any experiences with these apps or others, please let me know by leaving a comment below … I love testing new stuff
– Post From My iPhone
My name is Richard Mackney, I live in Derbyshire and I’m really keen to find out about emerging tech, especially in mobile communications and digital imaging. Since joining twitter in July 08 I’ve found it the perfect place to keep up to date with cutting edge developments and have always been keen to jump on the band wagon and get testing as soon as possible. I’ve only recently worked out how I should personally use twitter effectively and a change of account to @richardmackney was the catalyst in ensuring I am being feed the information that floats my boat on a daily basis.
You could say I’ve been MicroBlogging since 2002 on my personal blog as I’ve always sent out brief updates on what I’ve been up to in the world of tech – even if there were no readers back then (and there is only a few now – mostly bots) I’m keen to blog about mobile developments that are within my reach and report my findings while out and about travelling the UK with my family in my caravan! … the Ammobox blog looks like a great place to share and learn and I’m pleased I can be a part of it thanks to @philcampbell
If I’m not blogging here, you can usually find me on twitter or flickr … just follow the links from my personal homepage http://richard.mackney.com
