Welcome to Scribble

Hoorah, after a bit of queuing and a free cake courtesy of the local 02 shop Scribble: has finally got its hands on Steve Jobs’ latest baby, the iPhone4.

First impression is that it’s a super-shiny slab of gadget heaven.  Pick it up and its feels more like a tactile designer ornament rather than a phone. In fact its super model lines quickly makes it’s 3G sibling look chubby and dare I say it, a bit cheap.

Turning the phone on the first thing you’ll notice is the screen – its crystal clear courtesy of Apple’s self-coined Retina technology. This makes fonts on emails and messages look more refined and sharper. Thanks to the new Apple A4 chip iPhone appears to be a bit more responsive – or maybe we’ve just been seduced by it’s shiny glow.

The star of the show for us is HD Camera as we no longer have to remember the Flip. Results with our very limited testing are great and the IMovie App (which you have to download from the App store) makes it very easy to quickly edit and upload your movies with a choice of themes and editing options – it’s fairly basic but easy and fun to use. It’s perfect for on-the-hoof videoing and blogging. Once we’ve got over the giddy excitement of our new toy we’ll test it a bit more fully and show you some proper video results.

Unfortunately we haven’t yet had time to test out FaceTime (Video Chat) feature so that will be reviewed in a later post too.

We did have time to check out the new iBooks app which is also pretty slick with an attractive interface and lots of features, such as search, bookmarking and screen colour change. Although the screen is small it’s still the best reading experience I’ve had on a phone to date and I shall enjoy flicking through the free copy of ‘Winnie the Pooh’ that comes with the app the next time I’m on the train.

There have been reports on the web of users reporting reception problems when they put their hands over the antenna. We haven’t experienced these problems and find the reception (well on 02 at least) just as good as the 3G.

The only problem with it so far is that it seems more fragile than the 3G so if you’re clumsy like me a cover or Bumper case will be essential. My poor 3G has spent the last two years being subjected to daily abuse of car keys, pavement drops and the odd scrap against the wall. I’m not sure Apple’s new creature is quite as robust.

Scribble: announce today that the official Riley & Durrant iPhone application will be launched on Monday 12th July.  It will be available to download for FREE through iTunes and comes with an EXCLUSIVE 30 minute ‘Summer Mix’ which can only be listened to through their app!

Few DJs and producers can claim as much diversity as Nick Riley and Andi Durrant.  Best known for their dance shows on Galaxy FM where Andi Durrant hosts the UK’s biggest Saturday night dance show; as well as their long standing, international residency for dance music giant, Gatecrasher. They are two of the UK’s favourite and most musically diverse DJs, defying genres and resisting the usual rules of electronic music, the forward thinking DJs have now branched out in to the app world with their very own branded iPhone application.

The app boasts a wide range of features for fans to connect to their favourite DJ duo including:

All their latest news, social media including Facebook and Twitter (both tweets & mentions)

Photo gallery where you can view all the latest photos from Riley & Durrant’s packed out nights

Video gallery where you can watch videos of their releases as well as tips and tricks from the studio

Music streaming where you can listen to some of their latest tracks and remixes with a direct link to buy them straight away from the iTunes store

Catch up on their award winning radio shows from Galaxy FM

Events listings so you can keep track of where they are playing next so you never miss a show.

We’re excited about the launch and think that the app is a must have for any Riley & Durrant fans!

After much hype and speculation the launch of the new iPhone 4 is upon us.  The new phone went on sale this morning at 7am and some people even queued over night outside Apple’s London flag-ship store to ensure they got their hands on one!

New features on the phone include a second forward facing camera for video calls,  an improved 5 mega pixel camera and the ability to video in HD plus all the new features of the updated operating system such as app multi tasking, folders etc.

We have ours on order and are eagerly awaiting the delivery.  Once we’ve had a play around with it we’ll let you know what we think.

Today Glastonbury opens its doors for this years festival.  If you’re lucky enough to be going you’ll be wanting to know what’s happening across festival site so you don’t miss out on all  the action.  Orange have been producing apps for the legendary festival for the last few years and they have just brought out the 2010 version.  Although we didn’t build the app we still think it is a great app and a vital tool for navigating your way around.

The Standard version of the GlastoNav app includes:

Interactive map with zoom function

Full stage listings brought to you by the Guardian Guide

A complete bar guide

An easy way to pinpoint your tent, so you never get lost

Q’s favourite artist recommendations each day

The iPhone version includes:

All the great features of the standard app, but with an interactive 2D and augmented reality map

So there you go, that’s our tip for the Festival.  If you’re going this year, have a cider or two for us that have to stay behind and have a great weekend!

So the day has finally come around.  As of yesterday the new iPhone operating system was available to download for existing iPhone and iPod touch owners.  The actual iPhone 4 is not available in stores until thursday but it gives existing owners the chance to take advantage of the new features that the operating system offers.  Here in the Scribble office we have already upgraded our phones and had a play around with the some of the new features.  If you havent had a chance to upgrade yet we thought we would give you a quick run down of some of the best features.

Multi Tasking – as app builders this was one of the new features we were most excited about.  In previous operating systems only one app could run at a time.  Now with this update third party apps can run simultaneously so you can have apps running in the background when you are browsing Safari or you can skip between apps and come back to the same point as you left.

Folders – another new feature that we like is the ability to sort apps in to folders.  We think this is a great idea as you can now organise your apps so they are easier to find.  For example all your music apps can go into a ‘Music’ folder and you know exactly where to look rather than flicking through the many pages of apps.

Gift Apps – another cool app related feature is now you have the ability to send gift apps to friends or family.

There are over 100 new features included in the new operating system so we won’t go through them all but other important updates are improved mail, iBooks,  5x digital zoom, tap to focus video, improved spell checking and wireless keyboard support.

As you can see there are some great new features that are no doubt going to help app developers create some great new apps.  What do you think of iOS4?