Since I am in the US at the moment I thought 'oh well, I may as well get up to date on Eureka' - one of my favourite Sci Fi Shows. (For anyone who hasn't seen it, it's good fun)
So, off I went to itunes store, searched for Eureka Season 3, and took a look. Hmm, HD at $2.99 per episode, but AHA, I spotted a link on the right of the page for SD (Given I will be watching these episodes either on my 15.4" laptop, or on my 5th Gen Ipod Video, HD isn't really necessary)
I clicked on the link for the SD version (Standard Definition for those of you who have yet to get there) and voila, the episode price is now $1.99 per episode.
Nice I thought, and clicked on the 'buy' button.
I then went to the checkout and thought WTF?
ALL the episodes had become HD versions at $2.99 each
Why am I quibbling about this? well, apart from the extra $7 it means it will take an extra 6+Gb of storage for me to download them. I don't see why I should pay the extra for a resolution I don't need or want, especially when there is a link available to download the one I DO want. I contacted iTunes support about this and was told 'but when you buy the HD version you also get a copy in SD'
This would equate to you going to KFC, asking for a portion of hot wings, and then finding when you went to pay, that they had put you down for a value bucket meal complete with drinks etc, because 'when you buy the bucket you get a portion of hot wings'
Hello Apple, if I wanted the HD version I would have clicked on it, not that this would have made a difference since the episodes show as 'not available' in the checkout.
5 emails later to Apple and still no resolution, I will keep you posted if they actually manage to sort this out.
I just sometimes wonder if they are modelling themselves on another major software / games console company's strategy....
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Fun with Phones
Every couple of months I have issues with my phone, I don't really mind though, as the 'goodwill gestures' help to keep my phone bills down.
The thing is, it's not my fault these things happen, I refuse to setup a Direct Bank Transfer since my phone provider is so intent on being creative with my bills.
First let me tell you about my phone usage, I use a mobile as a primary line, ALL my calls are via mobile. This means my monthly phone usage can be up to 10,000 minutes. My current phone plan is unlimited calls to landlines, 700 minutes to mobiles, 100 text messages, unlimited evening and weekend data. (the data is for when I am not able to connect via the 2 plastic cups and piece of frayed string from Ben Franklin's kite experiment that my landline provider laughingly calls a phone line with ADSL support, but I'll explain more about that another time.)
My monthly bill should be about 42, this is before taking into account things like chargeable calls etc. I have received bills from 73 up to 97 for single months with zero chargeable extras, I have also had my phone cut off for non-payment of a bill which is below a zero level.
Today I had a weird experience, I finished on one call, tried to call another person only to be told that calls from my number were barred. I then tried to call INTO my phone only to find a disconnect tone, I promptly phoned the provider and sorted out the issue, then hit another issue, I received the SMS lifting the bar, closely followed by one sent earlier placing the bar back on. Cue another phone call to the provider getting them to manually resend the bar SMS settings to enable me to get the phone back on again. Needless to say this will be followed by another call monday to Customer service.
Why don't I change providers? Simple, they may screw up, but they are the only ones offering a talk plan suitable for my needs. Add to this the 'goodwill gestures' ensure my phone bills are low, and also that the inevitable issues only happen every couple of months. Overall I am quite happy with them.
The thing is, it's not my fault these things happen, I refuse to setup a Direct Bank Transfer since my phone provider is so intent on being creative with my bills.
First let me tell you about my phone usage, I use a mobile as a primary line, ALL my calls are via mobile. This means my monthly phone usage can be up to 10,000 minutes. My current phone plan is unlimited calls to landlines, 700 minutes to mobiles, 100 text messages, unlimited evening and weekend data. (the data is for when I am not able to connect via the 2 plastic cups and piece of frayed string from Ben Franklin's kite experiment that my landline provider laughingly calls a phone line with ADSL support, but I'll explain more about that another time.)
My monthly bill should be about 42, this is before taking into account things like chargeable calls etc. I have received bills from 73 up to 97 for single months with zero chargeable extras, I have also had my phone cut off for non-payment of a bill which is below a zero level.
Today I had a weird experience, I finished on one call, tried to call another person only to be told that calls from my number were barred. I then tried to call INTO my phone only to find a disconnect tone, I promptly phoned the provider and sorted out the issue, then hit another issue, I received the SMS lifting the bar, closely followed by one sent earlier placing the bar back on. Cue another phone call to the provider getting them to manually resend the bar SMS settings to enable me to get the phone back on again. Needless to say this will be followed by another call monday to Customer service.
Why don't I change providers? Simple, they may screw up, but they are the only ones offering a talk plan suitable for my needs. Add to this the 'goodwill gestures' ensure my phone bills are low, and also that the inevitable issues only happen every couple of months. Overall I am quite happy with them.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Making a phone do what you want
Well, given that here in the UK the police are adamant that using a phone while driving is dangerous unless you have a handsfree system, and given that most phones are somewhat limited in what you can control on them (having to define voice tags for callers etc) I decided to make my humble Orange SPV M3100 do a bit more.
Enter Voice Command 1.6
This is how voice control should be, my phone now has features accessible via voice command you can't even get to with the screen.
Why don't phone manufacturers do this from the start? The HTC phones would kick iphone to the side even more than they do already. Who wants to pay 269-329 for a phone that has such limited features?
Enter Voice Command 1.6
This is how voice control should be, my phone now has features accessible via voice command you can't even get to with the screen.
Why don't phone manufacturers do this from the start? The HTC phones would kick iphone to the side even more than they do already. Who wants to pay 269-329 for a phone that has such limited features?
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