After updating my 3G iPhone to 2.2 i have to say that this update has made me very happy. I really feel like the iPhone has gone back to the very well polished 1.1.4 status.
2.0 had lots of very welcome new features but it was sluggish and just terrible. After 2.2 all apps open faster, there is not any choppiness to the scrolling of iPod lists and the photo app has only a slight shudder when i browsed through a folder with 400 pictures. The animation of the 4 corners of the home screen coming together is much smoother now and some 3rd party apps even seem to load up faster. (I tested the trial version of spore for this and did not actually time it to compare)

as always there seem to be a number of minor changes that apple hasn't mention.

-gps has been improved, before I would get the cross hair and then like 20 seconds later be found. now it finds me in 5 seconds or so and it was working in the house as well where as before I had never been able to get gps with out walking outside.

-app store has an update all button now, and when you update an app instead of going to an empty space then putting it where it was before it just uses the original position.

-3G speed has definitely improved, using the iPhone speed test (i.dslr.net/tinyspeedtest.html) my testable speed has gone from 400 - 500kb/s to a consistent 700 - 900kb/s (this is on the fido network)

- app store now has more than one preview photo for apps and you can click on them to start a slide show interface.

- mail app actually fetches my gmail now :)

Street view is fun...but not available in very many places at all, none in Canada as far as i can tell. same with bus routes, couldn't find anything in Canada to use it with.

There are probably a few more small things that changed but overall this is a VERY good update, everything has been polished up and runs exceptionally well again.

Just having a moan really.
I used to use a Pentax ME Super and I remember my dad spending an extra £15 to get me a Pentax camera case for it. One of those ones that the lens cover unclipped and unfolded and hung underneath the camera. Now that I have a Pentax K10D I can't find a case for it unless I get one that I have to take the camera out of in order to take a picture. Very annoying.
Also, while I am having a moan, while I like the camera and am impressed with the pictures it produces, why is it so big? Any why so complicated? The sensor size is smaller than a 35mm negative, so shouldn't the camera be smaller? My Dad's compact Panasonic takes pictures that compare well with mine, and it's much smaller.
I happily used my ME Super either in aperture priority or manually and focussed it myself without any confusion. I mostly use the "P" mode with the K10D because I'm still not at the stage that I can change settings without thinking.
Still like the camera, just wish it had the controls, size and case of my old Super. I'd even put up with focusing the lens myself...

Alan (Grumpy Old Man)

pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/gizmodo/2008/11/beta-liberty.jpg" width="525" height="412" style="display:block;" //p div style='float:right; margin-left:-9px;'script type="text/javascript" digg_skin = 'compact'; digg_bgcolor = '#f1f8fa'; digg_url = 'http://digg.com/tech_news/A_Call_for_Revolution_Against_Beta_Culture'; /scriptscript src="http://digg.com/tools/diggthis.js" type="text/javascript" /script/div pI'm tired of this. This sense of permanent discomfort with the technology around me. The bugs. The compromises. The firmware upgrades. The "This will work in the next version." The "It's in our roadmap." The "Buy now and upgrade later." The patches. The new low development standards that make technology fail because it wasn't tested enough before reaching our hands. The feeling now extends to hardware: Everything is built to end up in the trash a year later, still half-baked, to make room for the next hardware revision. I'm tired of this beta culture that has spread like metastatic cancer in the last few years, starting with software from Google and others and ending up in almost every gadget and computer system around. We need a change./p pTake the iPhone, for example, one of the most successful products in the history of consumer electronics. We like it, I love mine, but the fact is that the first generation was rushed out, a href="http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/apple/no-bs-iphone-review-276116.php"lacking basic features/a that were added in later releases or a href="http://gizmodo.com/5083116/iphone-22-release-just-10-days-away"are not here yet/a. Worse: The a href="http://gizmodo.com/5047372/iphone-21-update-coming-friday-less-call-drops-crashes-faster-sync-better-battery-life"iPhone 3G was really broken/a. For real. Bad signal, dropped calls, frozen apps. This would have been unthinkable in cellphones just five years ago. They were simpler, for sure, but they were failure proof. Today's engineering and testing is a lot more sophisticated. In theory, products can't go out into distribution with such glaring problems undetected./p pAnother recent example is my iMac 24, which had the infamous a href="http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/imac/ati-graphics-may-be-at-the-root-of-imac-freezing-issues-307409.php"video card problem/a out of the box. How can a machine with such an obvious problem—instantly detected by the user base—be sold like that? The same happened recently with a href="http://gizmodo.com/5061605/apple-confirms-failing-nvidia-graphics-cards-in-macbook-pros-offers-free-repairs-and-refunds"Nvidia video boards/a. In fact, graphic cards—being always in the cutting edge of technology—are perfect examples of beta hardware being sold as final hardware, with many released with beta-quality drivers and requiring firmware patches./p pFrom that to the now-universally-accepted Blue Screen of Death, from a href="http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/movies/problems-with-blu+rays-bd+j-spec-causes-headaches-for-early-adopters-266923.php"buggy Blu-ray players/a to a href="http://gizmodo.com/5064742/microsoft-sued-over-xbox-360-rrod-issues"the Xbox 360's red ring of death/a and a href="http://gizmodo.com/367611/playstation-3-217-update-brings-bug-fixes-hard-drive-installation"PS3's bugs/a, even from a href="http://www.turbochef.com/residential/service/oven-firmware-updates.aspx"kitchen ovens/a to a href="http://gizmodo.com/356092/nikon-d300-firmware-update"faulty DSLR cameras/a, the list of troubled products is endless. Just this week, the eagerly anticipated BlackBerry Storm launched to a href="http://gizmodo.com/5094371/10-takes-on-the-blackberry-storm"mixed reviews/a, in part because of its crashy, apparently unfinished software./p pOn the other side, my parents have a Telefunken CRT TV and a Braun radio from the '70s which are still in working condition. They were first generation. They never failed. Compare that to my first plasma TV from Philips, which broke after less than a year of use. Mine wasn't the only one. The technology was too young to be released; it was still in beta state. Philips wanted to be the first in the world with a flat TV and beat the competition, so they released it. This probably wasn't a good move: Today, Philips' TV business is struggling, and is a href="http://gizmodo.com/377355/philips-wont-sell-tvs-in-north-america-anymore"nonexistent in the US/a. Meanwhile, my Sinclair ZX Spectrum and Apple IIe from the 1980s still work like they did from day one, perfectly./p pFor sure, today's products are far more complex than those of 20 or 30 years ago. But back then, the manufacturing was also a lot worse. It was less automated, often purely manual, and imperfect. Today, in a world where automated factories run 24/7, there's less chance of error. Yet still, there are countless problems in the final products, and those problems affect every unit in an entire model line. In the age of manufacturing perfection, there are still major recalls concerning products that a href="http://gizmodo.com/5067386/rage-wireless-guitar-leaks-acid-can-burn-your-rock-jewels"burn/a or a href="http://gizmodo.com/5052568/apple-recalls-ultracompact-usb-power-adapter-for-the-iphone-3g"break/a./p pClearly, the problem is the development process and the time to market, with product cycles shortened and corners cut to keep a continuous stream of cash flowing in. The rush to feed these cycles with increasingly more complex engineering seems to be at odds with shortened development and quality assurance processes, resulting in beta-state first-generation products. This beta culture, the same one that already plagues the web, breeds people who are willing to accept bugs in the name of cutting-edge gear./p pWho's to blame? Google and their web apps? Apple and their iPhone 3G problems? Microsoft and their countless buggy versions of operating systems and the Xbox 360's RROD? Philips? Sony? Samsung? LG? We all are. The manufacturers, who are driven by a thirst to expand and satisfy their shareholders at all costs. The consumers, who are so thirsty to drink in the shiniest, newest technology that they are willing to sacrifice stability. And the press too, who pours more gasoline onto the consumerism bonfire by writing glowing reviews and often minimizing things that are simply not acceptable./p pPersonally, I'm tired of all this. But I'm mostly tired about the fact that it seems that we all have given up. Tired because a href="http://gizmodo.com/5070154/why-its-safer-than-ever-to-buy-first+generation-hardware"now we see "upgrades" as an opportunity to protect our investment/a, but in reality, it's laziness and a poor job on the manufacturer part that we have accepted without questioning. Instead of calling foul play and refusing to participate, we keep buying./p pThat's the key: We have surrendered in the name of progress and marketing and product cycles and consumerism. Maybe those are good reasons, I don't know, but looking at the past, it feels like we are being conned. Deceived because the manufacturers of electronic products have taken our desire to progress faster and even embrace the web beta culture as an excuse to rush things to market, to blatantly admit bugs and the rushed features sets and sell the patches as upgrades./p pMaybe the recession will put some order in this thirst of new stuff and change the product cycles. As the economy slows down, people will think twice before buying the latest and greatest; they'll keep older hardware for longer. Then, manufacturers will have to rethink their product lines, and lift their feet from the accelerator, which will result on slower cycles and better products. Maybe that's our ticket for better electronics that actually make sense./p pOr maybe... maybe that will be another excuse for the manufacturer to cut even more corners and keep lowering prices so that consumers keep spending and ending up with worse products than we have now./p br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=c3e455c3677a43b80709099d95624e7cp=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=c3e455c3677a43b80709099d95624e7cp=1"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=c3e455c3677a43b80709099d95624e7c" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=RvVWNmt4"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?d=120" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=3tnPs2JD"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=8syG9UpF"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?i=8syG9UpF" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=NKPoFVUd"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?i=NKPoFVUd" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~4/fCpCo4ktygQ" height="1" width="1"/

L'Alpha 900 est une franche réussite et offre à Sony sa place dans le club très fermé des grands noms de la photo.

With the holiday season fast approaching, there's nothing that warms the heart like giving a gift with no expectation of anything in return. It's with that spirit that we pass along Dylan's incredibly important question:

"I've been nagging myself to get into digital photography and with Christmas coming soon I've decided to get a DSLR so I can dive in. I'm leaning heavily toward the Sony Alpha 350. I've always been a big Sony fan but I can back off of that if someone gives me good reason to try Nikon, Canon, etc. I would like to hang around the price range of the Alpha 350; ultimately, I'm looking for a good camera for a newcomer to the scene but I don't want to have to upgrade soon."

We hear ya Dylan, and our dutiful readers do too. (Right? Right.) After giving this one a response, feel free to send in your own inquiry to ask at engadget dawt com.

Filed under: Digital Cameras

Ask Engadget: Best DSLR for a committed amateur? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 20 Nov 2008 22:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

img vspace="16" hspace="4" border="0" align="right" alt="" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadgethd.com/media/2008/11/ask-engadget.jpg" /With the holiday season fast approaching, there's nothing that warms the heart like giving a gift with no expectation of anything in return. It's with that spirit that we pass along Dylan's incredibly important question: br /br /"I've been nagging myself to get into digital photography and with Christmas coming soon I've decided to get a DSLR so I can dive in. I'm leaning heavily toward the Sony Alpha 350. I've always been a big Sony fan but I can back off of that if someone gives me good reason to try Nikon, Canon, etc. I would like to hang around the price range of the Alpha 350; ultimately, I'm looking for a good camera for a newcomer to the scene but I don't want to have to upgrade soon." br /br /We hear ya Dylan, and our dutiful readers do too. (Right? Right.) After giving this one a response, feel free to send in your own inquiry to strongask at engadget dawt com/strong.pFiled under: a href="http://www.engadget.com/category/digitalcameras/" rel="tag"Digital Cameras/a/pp style="padding:5px;background:#ddd;border:1px solid #ccc;clear:both;"a href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/20/ask-engadget-best-dslr-for-a-committed-amateur/"Ask Engadget: Best DSLR for a committed amateur?/a originally appeared on a href="http://www.engadget.com"Engadget/a on Thu, 20 Nov 2008 22:45:00 EST. Please see our a href="http://www.weblogsinc.com/feed-terms/"terms for use of feeds/a./ph6 style="clear: both; padding: 8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"/h6a href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/20/ask-engadget-best-dslr-for-a-committed-amateur/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent link to this entry"Permalink/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.engadget.com/forward/1378675/" title="Send this entry to a friend via email"Email this/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/20/ask-engadget-best-dslr-for-a-committed-amateur/#comments" title="View reader comments on this entry"Comments/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/r_70dba8UZFz0LQS_PZ9YQr6o-M/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/r_70dba8UZFz0LQS_PZ9YQr6o-M/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/engadget?a=QFtDJIDn"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/engadget?i=QFtDJIDn" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/engadget?a=2VPPSQaT"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/engadget?i=2VPPSQaT" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~4/hUF-3ZJRlaI" height="1" width="1"/

Good morning,

May I know which country is this forum's origin? I'm from Singapore and have just picked up interest in DSLRs. I'm just curious: Amidst the worldwide economic recession where commodity, oil prices, stock indices are all plummeting, yet prices of DSLR cameras and lenses remain sky high?! Last night, senate did not approve of the US automakers bailout and this could have a tsunami effect on Asian markets today- there's gonna be a bloodbath. Wonder if DSLR cameras and lens prices are gonna drop?

Just an update on prices in Singapore:

*New 40D body cost about $1400 and should be falling as 50D was introduced, and I heard canon is gonna phase out 40D (Is that rumour true?).
*A 50mm 1.8l II cost about SGD$120 in Singapore.

What is the price of 40D in the US, Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia? Can some kind souls care to share? What about lens prices? Which country is cheaper?
Many thanks.