Christine and I are back from a lovely weekend in London. We decided to try out lastminute.com‘s ‘Top Secret Hotels’ for one of the nights. This is where the web site offers a deep discount at a (usually) four or five star hotel, but it doesn’t show you the name or any specific information about the hotel until you have booked. This means that premium hotels can fill spare rooms without damaging their reputation by lowering prices.
The hotel we booked was listed as having four stars, four out of five on TripAdvisor, and was located somewhere between Kensington and Fulham. Once the email came through, it was revealed to be the Millennium and Copthorne Hotels, located at Stamford Bridge, the ground for Chelsea Football Club. Apparently, we saved around £45 on the cost of the room.
Note that the hotel pictured above is The Midland Hotel in Morecambe, Lancashire. I didn’t take a picture of the hotel we stayed at this time.
Unfortunately the hotel was a bit disappointing. I’ve gone into more detail on a TripAdvisor review (awaiting moderation) but I would give the hotel three out of five, based on the price we paid; at full price, probably two out of five. There were a few things wrong with the room, but also, when booking a secret hotel, the bed layout cannot be guaranteed. So whilst we were hoping for a double room, we actually got a twin room. It does clearly state that this could happen when you book, but it’s worth knowing about.
Frankly, I’ve stayed at much nicer budget hotels, like Premier Inn and Holiday Inn Express, and paid less for the privilege. Whilst it was interesting to try somewhere a bit mysterious, I think we’ll stick with the hotel brands that we know and feel comfortable with next time.
Pictured above are some of the geese that make up a gaggle in my home town of Sowerby Bridge. They nominally live on the River Ryburn, the smaller of Sowerby Bridge’s two rivers which joins the River Calder in the town. Usually they are found on the river outside the swimming pool, but occasionally they waddle a little further afield.
They never stray very far. I’ve never seen any of them fly – they will occasionally flap their wings but they don’t seem to be capable of using them. They just waddle or swim, and the furthest they get is a couple of streets away.
There are probably around 20 of them, and they tend to move together as one big gaggle. This helps when trying to cross the busy A58 road that runs through the town, which they often do, as this video shows. And frequently it’s at rush hour.
Their presence in the town is, unsurprisingly, controversial. Letters from concerned nearby residents have been sent to the local paper and local councillors. The local council have asked that the public do not feed them, and a sign stating this has appeared at one of their regular haunts. However it’s fair to say this sign is regularly ignored as I’ve often seen people throwing bread into the river for them.
I have to admit I’m mostly on the side of the geese (even if their honking occasionally wakes me up on weekend mornings). Whilst they can be a bit threatening to small children and have a habit of defecating a lot, I don’t think there are many humane ways of getting rid of them. And I think they add character to the town, especially in the spring when the newborn goslings hatch. There’s even a Facebook fan page with over 800 ‘likes’. They’ve been here longer than anyone can remember, and I don’t think the town would be the same without them.
I was pretty-much bang on about the two new iPhones – the cheaper 5C and the premium 5S. There were so many leaks of information that these were expected by many, and so it was a bit of let-down when Apple were unable to surprise us. As predicted there would be a new processor, which was indeed the A7, although the M7 co-processor to manage the motion sensors was a surprise. And as expected the iPhone 5S will ship with a fingerprint scanner on the home button.
The iPhone 5C is, as expected, a cheaper plastic phone, but it’s not significantly cheaper than the iPhone 5 was. Unless Apple will be selling it more cheaply in emerging markets and then pricing it higher in the more lucrative Western markets.
Both handsets will actually come in five versions (so ten in total), with different models for different networks, due to the big variation in frequency bands for 4G LTE. Vodafone is listed in the UK, meaning that the 5S and 5C will work on its 4G network. The iPhone 5 didn’t because Vodafone and O2 will be using the frequency bands that were freed up when analogue terrestrial television broadcasts were turned off last year. Whilst O2 isn’t listed, as the original launch partner for the iPhone in the UK I expect this is an oversight and that they will offer 4G services on the new handsets, and I expect 3 will do as they will offer 4G on the existing iPhone 5 last this year.
Apple have unexpectedly returned to the case market with new cases for both models. There’s also a new docks – one for the 5 and 5S, and one for the 5C.
Retiring of the old models.
Nope. Got this wrong. The iPad 2 and iPhone 4S are still on sale, and even the iPhone 4 will be available in China. Apple did kill off one its phones though, and surprisingly it was the iPhone 5. The 5C and 5S will therefore completely replace it. Normally Apple keep at least the previous two models on sale, although the third-generation iPad with retina display was retired after 8 months so it’s not completely unheard of.
The iPod Classic gets a stay of execution
I fully expected Apple to finally give the iPod Classic the Old Yeller treatment, but it’s still on sale, surprisingly. There were no major changes to the iPod range yesterday (with one exception, see below) and my hope of a 128 GB iPod Touch didn’t become a reality.
No NFC
As expected, Apple have not added support for NFC to their phones. I agree with Apple that Bluetooth SMART has more potential than NFC.
No Apple TV changes
Sadly there are no changes coming to the Apple TV, despite my hopes. Apple needs to offer more services on the platform if it hopes to be competitive against rivals like Roku, particularly outside of the US.
And everything else
We didn’t get to see the much-rumoured smart watch yesterday. I imagine Apple are working on one but are waiting until they can offer something significantly better than the competition. Samsung released its Galaxy Gear smartwatch to very mixed reviews last week and I’ve heard quite a few people have been underwhelmed by the Pebble smartwatch. Maybe next time.
After two years, the Cards app for iOS, which allowed you turn your pictures into greetings cards, was discontinued. I don’t know anyone who used this so this isn’t surprising. That being said, I don’t know anyone who uses the ‘Stocks’ app that comes with every iPhone and can’t be deleted, yet it’s still there in iOS 7.
Today Apple is announcing something, at around 6pm BST. It’s probably the seventh iteration of the iPhone, and the rumours suggest that this is the case, but until Tim Cook steps up on stage this evening we won’t know for sure.
I’ve got a few predictions, mostly based on the rumours that I’ve been reading over the past few weeks. I don’t actively seek out rumours but they do appear on sites like The Unofficial Apple Weblog and Twitter from time to time. So here’s what I expect:
Two new iPhone models, including a budget model
There are credible rumours that Apple will release two new models of the iPhone today – a new iPhone 5S, and a cheaper iPhone 5C. The 5S will probably have the same form factor as the existing iPhone 5 but have some extra hardware features and a beefed-up processor – possibly the A6X as used in the fourth-generation iPad but maybe a new A7 processor. I also believe the rumours of a fingerprint scanner on the home button.
The iPhone 5C will be a cheaper and more plasticy model that will be particularly aimed at emerging markets like China, but I think it will also do well in western markets. I know there are people out there who want to buy an iPhone but can’t justify the cost, and don’t want an old model.
The iPhone 4, 4S and iPad 2 will be retired
The three year old iPhone 4 is sure to be retired but I expect the 4S to go, and the iPad 2. This will mean that all of Apple’s mobile products will use the Lightning connector, rather than the 30-pin Dock connector, and all of its phones will have the same screen size.
The iPod Classic will be retired
It’s been 4 years since the last update to the iPod Classic, which is the only remaining iPod model to include a hard disk (as opposed to flash memory). Wired thinks it’ll be dropped and I agree. I hope that a new 128 GB iPod Touch will be released, so that Apple can still cater for those who want to be able to play their entire large music collection on the go.
Neither of the new iPhones will have NFC
NFC, or near-field communication, is becoming standard on many Android and Windows phones. But I can’t see Apple adopting it. They’ll go for Bluetooth SMART instead. Because the iPhone already has Bluetooth, this shouldn’t require any new hardware, and should be better for battery life too.
According to this AppleInsider article, this will be branded as iBeacons in iOS 7, and will be available not only in Apple’s new handsets, but the existing iPhone 4S and 5 as well.
Third-party apps for the Apple TV
Okay, this is less a prediction and more of a hope. Apple has been steadily increasing the number of platform partners for the Apple TV but it’s still very US-centric. The only UK channel available at present is Sky News.
I hope that Apple opens an App Store for the Apple TV, opening the door to apps such as BBC iPlayer, 4oD, Demand 5, ITV Player, Now TV and the like. This will make the device significantly more useful.
We will find out in just over eight hours’ time what comes to pass.
