antarjaal

Its more than two months that I have been using the new Apple iPhone 3G. August 22nd was when it was launched here in India and over the last two months it has grown over me in as much of a similar fashion as A.R Rahman's music. It was steeply priced (like all good products are) and the decision to buy was hesitant but no regrets what so ever.

Here are a few applications that I use, all of them available for free at the iTunes store.

Bloomberg
I was amazed at the amount of information one single application could provide. It gets you news from around the world, status of the major equity indices ( Sensex and Nifty included ), currency rates and you can monitor your stocks. I was able to quickly build of list of Indian Stocks by searching company names. The columns dynamically change on a tap to show different information like P & L, position, % change etc. It does not however sum it up at the bottom !!.For each company there are charts available, all you need to do is turn the phone to landscape mode.

The news application allows you to configure so as to get news from various sources. Each news article is could potentially show up an advertisement. Read about it at the Advertisements within Applications on iPhone.

Firemail
This simple app allows one to type an email in landscape mode. It just makes it easier to type long mails. But it comes at the cost of a few additional actions and navigation that are irritants. When composing a new mail you can launch this and do things seamlessly. But a reply is a little messy. You have to first get into reply mode in the mobile mail app and then navigate back to the springboard and then launch firemail and then send back the mail to the mobile mail app. For short replies what is the mobile mail app is more than good.

A couple of complaints though:

1. The toolbar is right on top the keyboard. It comes in the way of typing very often. A good option would be to hide the toolbar and make it appear when a button is clicked or on double tap in the text area.

2. When the content is passed from firemail to the mobile mail app you have to switch from landscape to portrait mode. If not careful about where you hold the phone to turn it around one could accidently press cancel in the mobile mail app. I did it once and lost all the content that I had typed. :(

DaisyFeed
A free RSS reader. Better looking and performing than the "Free RSS Reader". The autodiscovery of feeds also worked quite well. It allows for categorizing the feeds and has a separate screen for favorites.

ShopShop
iTunes has a lot of shopping list applications. This one was what I liked for its simplicity. It shows the number on items on the badge, which acts as a good reminder that shopping needs to be done. One tap and the item gets striked out, just as i would do it on a piece of paper(I think this is what I liked the most). A smart clear button clears out striked out items. You can easily reorder items and it remembers previously entered items so that I dont have to type it again :).

iMazeLite
A free game. You have to manoeuvre the ball through the maze to reach the hole. The first time I used it was only tilt based. Now it has both tilt and touch. The switch from portrait to landscape mode in a browser does not excite one as much as this simple game. Lots more I have tried , the recent one i tried is the Pacman lite. This shows up ads at the bottom. Read about it at the Advertisements within Applications on iPhone.

Thuralli is a small hillock off the kanakapura road. Its been a popular place for rock climbers, it definitely is good choice for mountain bike beginners. I do not know the exact kilometers we did, suspect it to be between 12 - 15 kms one way. But in this short distance it gave us a variety of surfaces for the rubber to meet. I would say we were tested for our abilities with these bikes.

5:26 AM : Shridhar calls in and informs he is waiting outside my house. I took time to pack in bread, juices and camera.

5:35 AM : Our ride started , I was still a little sleepy , my friend was in good condition. We wanted to be on top before the sunrise. Shridhar was on his Trek 3700 and me on a 4300D.

The Banashankari vegetable market was just getting busy as we crossed it. We were on kanakapura road till we reached the Queens Court Dhabha. There is a right just before this dhabha. It is a wide mud road , that twists and dips and narrows as it reaches the foot of the hill. The broken tarmac starts here !!. We knew we had to take a right on some mud road , we did not know which one. We followed the tarmac and later realized this was going downhill already after about a few minutes of ups and twists. But the downhill ride was feeling good, the bumpy track and the speed was giving the thrills!!. I reminded myself "you need a helmet". Eventually we ended up at a dead end , almost.

So turned back and were looking for any possible turns that we could have missed or someone who could help us. The latter happened first. So apparently we missed a right on to a mud road. This is the first right turn as one starts to climb up on the tarmac. Good path for off-roading.

Its probably just about a kilometer or lesser from here to the top. Progressively the incline begins to get better of the rider. Loose gravel and incline definitely made me feel , wow now I get to do what I bought the bike for.

6:30 AM : It was around this time that we made it to the top. We had acknowledging grins on our faces. Watched the sun rise. Took pictures , tried riding on the rocks where ever we could.

Eased out and watched the sun rise. Looked around to see a small green belt surrounding us and a huge concrete belt surrounding the greenery. We had the breakfast we were carrying , pulpy orange to drink and Iyengar bakery bread with Kissan Jam to eat :D.

Even though we felt slightly out of the busy and noisy world, our "annavaru's" voice in the form of a devotional song was still heard on top. Did not bother to figure out which temple was playing it.

7:30 AM : Packed back our stuff, ensured we did not leave any litter and started back. Getting down the bumpy, gravel incline does feel better than climbing it. In 15 minutes we were back on the kanakapura road.

8:16 AM : Bye Bye Shridhar and knock knock house door. Its his turn now to choose the destination for the next ride.