Hardware Hacking for iOS Programmers Español | Deutsch | Français | Italiano | Português

This post was originally published on Josetteorama.

The arrival of the iPhone changed the whole direction of software development for mobile platforms, and has had a profound impact on the hardware design of the smart phones that have followed it.

Not only do these devices know where they are, they can tell you how they're being held, they are sufficiently powerful to overlay data layers on the camera view, and record and interpret audio data, and they can do all this in real time. These are not just smart phones, these are computers that just happen to be able to make phone calls.

Alasdair Allan demonstrating an Augmented Reality application

The arrival of the External Accessory Framework was seen, initially at least, as having the potential to open the iOS platform up to a host of external accessories and additional sensors. Sadly, little of the innovation people were expecting actually occurred, and while there are finally starting to be some interesting products arriving on the market, for the most part the External Accessory Framework is being used to support a fairly predictable range of audio and video accessories from big-name manufacturers.

The reason for this lack of innovation is usually laid at the feet of Apple's Made for iPod (MFi) licensing program. To develop hardware accessories that connect to the iPod, iPhone, or iPad, you must be an MFi licensee.

Unfortunately, becoming a member of the MFi program is not as simple as signing up as an Apple Developer, and it is a fairly lengthy process. From personal experience I can confirm that the process of becoming an MFi licensee is not for the faint-hearted. And once you’re a member of the program, getting your hardware out of prototype stage and approved by Apple for distribution and sale is not necessarily a simple process.

However all that started to change with the arrival of Redpark's serial cable. As it's MFi approved for the hobbyist market it allows you to connect your iPhone to external hardware very simply, it also allows you to easily prototype new external accessories, bypassing a lot of the hurt you experience trying to do that wholly within the confines of the MFi program.

Another important part of that change was the Arduino. The Arduino, and the open hardware movement that has grown up with it and to a certain extent around it, is enabling a generation of high-tech tinkers to prototype new ideas with fairly minimal hardware knowledge.

Every so often a piece of technology can become a lever that lets people move the world, just a little bit. The Arduino is one of those levers. While it started off as a project to give artists access to embedded microprocessors for interactive design projects, I think it’s going to end up in a museum as one of the building blocks of the modern world. It allows rapid, cheap prototyping for embedded systems. It turns what used to be fairly tough hardware problems into simpler software problems.

Turning things into software problems makes things more scalable, it drastically reduces development time scales, and up front investment, and as the whole dot com revolution has shown, it leads to innovation. Every interesting hardware prototype to come along seems to boast that it is Arduino-compatible, or just plain built on top of an Arduino.

Controlling an Arduino directly from the iPad

I think the next round of innovation is going to take Silicon Valley, and the rest of us, back to its roots, and that's hardware. If you're a software person the things that are open and the things that are closed are changing. The skills needed to work with the technology are changing as well.

Alasdair demonstrating an Augmented Reality application

At the start of October I'll be running a workshop on iOS Sensors and External Hardware. It's going to be hardware hacking for iOS programmers, and an opportunity for people to get their hands dirty both the internal sensors in the phone, and with external hardware.

The workshop is intended to guide you through the start of that change, and get you hands-on with the hardware in your iPhone you've probably been ignoring until now. How to make use of the on-board sensors and combine them to build sophisticated location aware applications. But also how to extend the reach of these sensors by connecting your iOS device to external hardware.

Blinking the heartbeat LED of a BeagleBone from the iPhone

We'll look at three micro-controller platforms, the Arduino and the BeagleBone and Raspberry Pi, and get our hands dirty building simple applications to control the boards and gather measurements from sensors connected to it, directly from the iPhone. The course should give you the background to build your own applications independently, using the hottest location-aware technology yet for any mobile platform.

The workshop will be on Monday the 8th of October at the Hoxton Hotel in London at the heart of  Tech City, and right next to Silicon Roundabout. I'm extending a discount to readers; 10% off the ticket price with discount code OREILLY10. That makes the early bird ticket price just £449.10 (was £499), or if you miss the early bird deadline (the 1st of September) a full priced ticket still only £629.10 (£699).

Monday 8th October 2012

Hoxton Hotel, London

Early Bird Price: £499 (until 1st Sept.)

Normal Price: £699

Save 10% with code OREILLY10

.Astronomy 3 Español | Deutsch | Français | Italiano | Português

This week I'm at the .Astronomy 3 conference in Oxford. A wierd mashup between astronomy, cutting edge computer science, and social media.

The .Astronomy3 Trailer from Markus Poessel.

Shunned by their colleagues for not doing enough research, an elite team of computer geeks has gone into the Oxford underground. If you can find them, maybe you can hire... the .A Team.

Enroute to OSCON Español | Deutsch | Français | Italiano | Português

I'm currently holed up in the Renaissance London Heathrow on my way out to OSCON 2008 being held in Portland in Oregon, at the Oregon Convention Centre.

Unlike last year the journey was fairly pleasant, just over two and a half hours in a straight run down the east coast main line from Leeds, where I was watching my wife graduate with her doctorate, instead of a torturous seven and a half hour journey across a flood torn west country.

However I've got a four thirty am check-in tomorrow morning, so right now it's time to get some sleep. More from me when I hit Portland...

Update: We took off late from Heathrow due to the late arrival of the equipment, we lost more time in the air due to adverse headwinds, and yet more time racked and stacked over a fog-bound O'Hare. So while I'm now on the ground in Chicago, I'm here two hours later than I should have been. Fortunately, for various values of fortunately, my trip through US immigration was relatively unscathed, and my onward flight turns out to be just as delayed going out as I was coming in. So I'm now camped out in the newly rennovated Red Carpet Club near B18. I'll let you know how things go when, or if, I make it into Portland later today...

Update: Finally made it into Portland. My connecting flight out of O'Hare was delayed, delayed again, and then delayed again. Then suddenly moved forward by an hour without warning, to a slot only a few minutes away. Apparently our plane was still sitting in Toronto, and United had decided to give us a different one at short notice. Presumably some other people were now without a plane, however...

This meant that I had to run across the terminal. Although I made it onto the flight ahead of most people, who no doubt had retired to the bar, or just taken a nap secure in the knowledge that had at least another hour to wait.

I also made it onto the plane before the flight crew, who took another hour and a half to arrive after we'd fully boarded. The cabin crew were looking distinctly nervous towards the end...

Once the flight crew arrived, did the safety check and the pre-fight, we'd closed the doors and started to pushback, one of the cabin crew noticed we had an extra passenger. The plane was full, every seat was taken, but there was still one poor guy still standing in the aisle clutching a valid boarding pass, but without a seat. After a brief discussion about whether he could sit in a spare jump seat, they finally decided that they just weren't allowed to do that anymore, he had to go...

So we had to find ourselves a new ground crew, return to the gate, and offload the guy. At this point we were getting close to the point where our flight crew were about to go illegal. We didn't pushback, for the second time, much ahead of the point where they'd have had to find us a new flight crew. Considering they probably couldn't do that the second pushback, and subsequent take off, was expedited. I was listening in on to the tower chatter on channel 9, and from the sounds of things we ducked in ahead of a fairly big queue, and rolled almost without a pause directly from the gate to the end of 32L and into the air.

That said, I arrived into Portland only two and a half hours later than planned, and I got to take a minor supporting role in an excellently produced farce. You can't complain too much...

Petrol crisis? What petrol crisis? Español | Deutsch | Français | Italiano | Português

In the wake of the current industrial action by tanker drivers, and more planned action at the middle of the week, some garages have been raising prices.

Here in the South West we're amoungst the worst affected by the strike, by now pretty much all of the filling stations in mid-Devon seem to have run out of diesel, while most of them have either run out, or are now rationing, unleaded petrol. There have also been some price rises by those forecourts that still have fuel left, although it's debatable with this to protect supply or simple profiteering. But even here in the South West 199.9 pence per litre, well above the average pre-strike price in Devon of 117.9 pence per litre, now being charged by one forecourt in Exwick is a little extreme.

CREDIT: BBC News

For my North American based audience that's £9.09 per Imperial gallon, or US$14.85 per US gallon at the current exchange rate of £1.00 to US$1.96.

So please stop complaining about your US$4 gallon of gas. Because its getting annoying, and even at the average pre-strike price, it looks awfully good to us over here. It's been a long time since anyone in the UK paid 54 pence per litre for petrol.

Despite reassurances by Downing Street to the contrary, I think a US$15 gallon of gas, with two more weeks of on again, off again, industrial action still planned, counts as a crisis. Don't you?

Update: Makes me wish for the good old days...

The 3G iPhone Español | Deutsch | Français | Italiano | Português

Well we've all known it was coming, and that it was 3G. Engadget are hands-on with the new iPhone...

CREDIT: Engadget

However despite the hype surrounding the new phone, Read/Write Web injects a healthy dose of realisim by noting that all Apple is doing is playing catch up. While Dean Bubly points out that the 2MP camera was obsolete on the previous model, let alone this years model. It's a point I can certainly sympathise with, as I no longer own a digital camera. With a 5MP camera on my current phone, why would I have to?

My biggest problem with the old iPhone was Bluetooth, or rather the lack of proper Bluetooth support for anything other than the Headset Profile. Unlike the US, where Bluetooth really hasn't got a lot of market penetration, Bluetooth is everywhere here in the UK. Most, actually thinking about it, all of the devices I carry around with me (apart from my iPod touch) come with Bluetooth and unlike the States we're never suffered from the "crippled Bluetooth" problem. The new iPhone claims to come with Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR. However, whether this means that we finally have proper Bluetooth support remains to be seen.

On the down side, at least in the US, the "novel" at home activation via iTunes has gone the way of all things, and activation is in-store only. I doubt they're going to get away with that here in the UK, almost nobody I know buys their phones in a bricks-and-mortar store. I'm sure some people do, there wouldn't be as many mobile phone stores if they didn't, but everyone I know orders their handset online and it arrives the next day via courier. Worryingly however, if you go to the Apple website, only O2 and Carphone Warehouse are listed as places you can get a new iPhone.

On the up side, the iPhone is heavily subsidised here in the UK and will be free (via TechCrunch UK) from O2 on tariffs above £45 per month. The tariffs themselves, and here our friends across the pond must remember that in the UK you're not billed for incoming calls and text messages, are actually quite competitive.

Over the last few years we've been fighting an ongoing rear-guard action against longer contracts here in the UK, and regrettably, the iPhone might be the final nail in the coffin for traditional 12 month contracts. Although I'll note that O2 didn't quite have the guts to try and push the 24 month contracts that are standard with AT&T in the US. Unsurprisingly perhaps, I doubt anyone would buy the handset at all at that point, a longer contract would be far more off putting that anything else they could do apart from charging for it in the first place.

The only remaining problem? How do I hide the purchase from my wife?

An Apple store of my very own... Español | Deutsch | Français | Italiano | Português

Just got the email from Apple announcing that the Exeter Apple Store, in the new Princesshay development, will be opening this Saturday, the 24th of November.

An Apple Store of my very own, pity I'll be 30,000 ft over Greenland inbound into LAX at the time really. I'll miss out on that free t-shirt...

There went the iPhone? Español | Deutsch | Français | Italiano | Português

As predicted, yesterday's special event saw the UK launch of the Apple iPhone. Surprisingly it left me unmoved, and from the reactions I've seen elsewhere I'm not alone. In fact I've been left with a certain feeling of disappointment...

CREDIT: Engadget

Comparing the iPhone specification to the Nokia's current flagship product the Nokia N95, the iPhone doesn't really measure up very well. Crucially it lacks that 3G magic we're used to in the UK, and the absence of an onboard GPS has always puzzled me, but perhaps the thing that's going to surprise Apple is the reaction they're going to get to the crippled Bluetooth functionality. The iPhone can only use it's Bluetooth to talk to a headset, we're used to more. I doubt I could even find the data cable for my Nokia N80. Having to sync my phone by plugging it in with a wire is so last century.

The deal with the Cloud is interesting, but not amazingly useful. The places people want to use WiFi such as train stations, airports, coffee shops and book stores, are mostly using T-Mobile in the UK. The Cloud on the other hand seems to have most of its hotspots located in pubs. I don't know about you but I've never taken my laptop out of its bag in a pub in my life. I don't think I've ever seen anyone working on a laptop in a pub either. I've never figured out how the Cloud made any money. I'm presuming there are other hotspots, but I don't think I've ever run across one.

With estimates that somewhere between 10 and 20 percent of early adopters have hacked their iPhone, either by installing third party native applications, or by unlocking it, it looks like there is a lot of suppressed demand for both. I'm guessing that the UK market isn't going to take well to a locked iPhone either, again we're used to being able to unlock our phones. In fact we're so used to having unlocked phones, it'll probably confuse quite a few people that they can't just put one of their pay as you go SIM cards into the phone from the outset. It's interesting that Apple have gone with Carphone Warehouse, their normal policy is to sell all their phones unlocked.

Of course the big stumbling block is price, like most Brits I was guessing that Apple just wouldn't be able to persuade a UK network to sell the iPhone without a subsidy. It's totally alien to the way the UK market works, I've never paid for a phone and I've always had high specification phones. It's also interesting to see that the O2 contract is for 18 months. Lately, driven by the uptake in 18 and 24 month contracts in the US, the networks have been trying to push these fairly hard in the UK. They aren't popular, I'm on a 12 month contract and wouldn't sign an 18 month one under any circumstances.

I guess that I expected better from Apple, and I'm part of the mounting back lash. That said, just as soon as someone manages to jailbreak the new iPod touch I'll be picking up one of those. For me at least, it's pointless getting one unless I can use third party applications. Although the lack of any Bluetooth at all is puzzling. I know that in the US Bluetooth never really made a big impact, but in the UK, and Europe, Bluetooth is everywhere. Virtually everything electronic I own talks to each other via Bluetooth. It'd be weird to own a pice of kit that doesn't...

As for a phone, I'll stick with my Nokia for now. Maybe the next generation iPhone will tempt me when it arrives early next year. But unless they fix the crippled Bluetooth at least I'm not so sure, even then I wouldn't buy a locked phone.

Update: At least according to the New York Times (via TUAW) it isn't as if they don't have the margin to offer the subsidies we were expecting either...

Here comes the iPhone? Español | Deutsch | Français | Italiano | Português

Reports are coming in (via TUAW) that Apple has announced an invite-only event to be held next Tuesday at the Regent Street Apple Store. The invite is pretty cryptic, even for Apple, but like almost everyone else I'm presuming that the tagline "Mum is no longer the word" is hinting at a UK release for the iPhone.

Update: My main objection to the rumours that O2 were Apple's chosen partner for the iPhone in the UK seems to be disappearing as, despite having a perfectly good 3G network, they appear to be rolling out an EDGE network across the UK. That more or less both confirms that Apple are going to be the shipping a 2.5G iPhone in the UK, and that O2 is their chosen partner. There really isn't any other reason for O2 to do this...

Update: I'm going to be presenting in a conference during Apple's announcement, so if you want to follow along you'll have to make do with Engadget's live coverage.

Update: My comments on the release of the iPhone in the UK.

New Apple stores in the UK? Español | Deutsch | Français | Italiano | Português

It looks like Apple are planning to open some new stores in both the UK and Australia, and I'm jumping up and down with excitement here, why? Looks like one of them will be in Exeter in the new Princesshay development. An Apple store of my very own, what more could you wish for...

Apples and Oranges? Español | Deutsch | Français | Italiano | Português

More rumours that Orange might have already signed a deal with Apple to carry the iPhone in the UK and perhaps Europe.

I must admit I've been waiting for this, Orange is the only operator to have an EDGE network here in the UK. If Apple weren't going to release the iPhone with Orange, then who were they going to use? Unless as other rumours suggest the European iPhone ends up being 3G after all...

Update: More from Ars Technica...

Update: France Telecom (aka Orange) have responded to the rumours, and the associated 1.5 percent rise in their share price, with a simple "No comment", which is pretty much what O2 said...

Update: We can "neither confirm nor deny" the rumours...

Update: Orange says "Nope, not us"...

Closing the iTunes divide? Español | Deutsch | Français | Italiano | Português

So just before the press conference yesterday, Ars Technica reported rumours that the iTunes divide might finally be closed. It seems that movies and TV episodes might be coming to the iTunes UK store real soon now,

Trusted sources inside the company have told Ars that Apple plans to introduce movies and TV shows to iTunes UK very soon—as in, a couple of weeks. Things are apparently all set up and ready to go, so it's just a matter of flipping the switch after the dull roar has died down about today's Apple event. - via Ars Technica

It can't be soon enough, I've been waiting for this since October 2005. Without those movies and TV episodes the Apple TV, while available in the UK, is a door stop not a functional product...

The question you have to ask yourself is, why this long?

Heading home from OSCON Español | Deutsch | Français | Italiano | Português

So I'm sitting in the lounge at PDX waiting for my flight to Chicago O'Hare and then onward to Heathrow. However I'm not entirely sure how far I'm going to get after I land back in the Britain. Looking at the news coming out of the UK the rail system doesn't look like its recovered from the heavy flooding last week while I was travelling to OSCON.

The BBC's flood mashup (via Google Lat Long Blog) looks a bit worrying as well. To get from London to Exeter I have to go through Reading, which doesn't seem to be in a good way right now, and with more rain predicted while I'm enroute to Heathrow I'm pretty much reduced to crossing my fingers at this point...

Update: Made it home in one piece, with the trains more or less running to time, unless you wanted to head north out of Paddington towards Oxford. In which case you were out of luck as the lines were still underwater. Although looking at the countryside as I passed through Berkshire, the best description I can come up with is "water-logged". It probably wouldn't put much more rain to start another round of flooding...

Enroute to OSCON Español | Deutsch | Français | Italiano | Português

I'm currently holed up in the Sheraton Heathrow on my way out to OSCON 2007 being held in Portland in Oregon, at the Oregon Convention Centre.

I arrived here after a torturous seven and a half hour journey across from Exeter, stretched from the normal and much more reasonable two or three hours, which was all down to the heavy flooding in the South East of England. After being stranded in Bristol Temple Meads for two hours, First Great Western finally bundled me and about twenty other people on our way to Heathrow and Gatwick airports into a small fleet of taxis. That's 105 miles to Heathrow and 135 miles to Gatwick. Not cheap, but with almost the entire English rail system shut down, about the only way they were going to get us here at all.

I've got an early flight out of Terminal 3 tomorrow morning, so more from me when I hit Portland...

Update: I'm not alone, although probably slightly soggier due to the vagrancies of the British climate. I was excited by the possibilities of Gears during the launch at the Developer Day, so looking down the list of Google related talks it looks like I'll have to go to the Google Gears session to check on progress.

Update: I'm sitting at the gate in O'Hare waiting to board UA129 to Portland. It's been a long day. I caught a morning flight out of Heathrow, and actually got into Chicago about 45 minutes ahead of schedule, so I had lots of time to make my connecting flight to Portland. The queue for US immigration was about an hour and a half, not the worst I've ever seen, and I was only a few people from the head of the queue when the US immigration system crashed. The entire system, nation wide. No one in, no one out.

By the time it came back up two hours later, the luggage was piled to the ceiling in baggage reclaim, and the immigration queue behind me stretched back to the gates, and in O'Hare that's a long way. There were even people still stuck in newly arrived planes because there wasn't space to let them into the Terminal.

From having an excessive five hours to make my connection, I ended up having to jog to reach my gate, and that was with those precious extra 45 minutes. The people still stuck onboard their planes are probably facing seven or eight hours of queuing before they even see their luggage, let alone the light of day...

So, any bets on whether my luggage turns up in Portland?

Update: Unbelievably, my luggage turned up. Of course I ended up with the last room in the hotel, and it shows. I'm getting moved tomorrow but I'll have to suffer it tonight. It's that or accept a walk order for another hotel, as they are literally full here, and I'm just too tired to handle that right now.

Confirmation of an O2 deal? Español | Deutsch | Français | Italiano | Português

While it looks like T-Mobile will be distributing the iPhone in Germany, the BBC is reporting that O2 has won distribution rights in the UK. I must admit to being disappointed, if true it means I'm going to have to switch operators. How annoying...

Update: Looks like O2 has denied the rumours. Gizmodo pretty much sums things up. This is almost worse than waiting around since 2004 for the thrice cursed thing in the first place...

Update: Just got hit between the eyes with a brick, O2 never rolled out an EDGE network in the UK. If this really is true, then the European/UK release of the iPhone has to be 3G.

Update: The Register is trying hard to stop the speculation with the suggestion that "... any UK deal is not beyond the round-of-golf stage", but I doubt that will stop anyone else talking about this incessantly for the next six months.


Update: Looks like Amazon.co.uk slipped up and posted an estimated release date of 1st December at a price point of £329 on their site. This has now been removed and replaced with a less interesting page. Nothing about a carrier though, Apple really are playing this close to their chest, as usual...

Update: The latest rumour is that a iPhone has been seen in the wild in the UK on O2. Hmm, who do AT&T users end up roaming onto when they're in the UK?

Just another Manic Monday... Español | Deutsch | Français | Italiano | Português

It was an iPhone weekend after all, and this is very much the day after the weekend before. Just about every blog I read today had at least one iPhone post, and shockingly it's looking like it could live up to the hype and that it might actually even kick some ass. Who'd have thought?

Of course I'm sulking, and you only have to compare the U.S. and U.K. Apple Stores to figure out why. I can't buy one yet. So far we have only rumours which suggest that it'll be October before any of us here in the U.K. gets a chance at an iPhone, and we still don't know which network we'll have lock ourselves into to get one.

However as I'm off to OSCON later in the month I guess I'm going to have to stop by the Portland Apple Store and see what the fuss is all about. After all, it's the only decent thing to do...

Update: I've been seeing more and more rumours that its going to be Vodafone. Realistically I still think that has to mean a 3G iPhone because Orange have pretty much the only functional EDGE network in Europe.

Of course what I don't understand is people are taking about a U.K. and a European release in one breath. The mainland European and the U.K. markets are very different beasts and I'd be surprised if Apple tries to handle them with the same operator. Maybe it all looks the same from over on the other side of the pond, but from over here the difference between how the French or the Germans use their phones, and how the Brits do, is quite marked.

No iPhone for the UK? Español | Deutsch | Français | Italiano | Português

So with the release of Apple's long awaited iPhone in the US scheduled for the 29th of June, people are starting to wonder about the European launch, which as far as we know is still supposed to be October this year. Just anecdotally I can tell you that there is a lot of demand over here for the handset. Although with the smart phone market much more mature in the UK than the States the low resolution (for Europe) camera, and the lack of 3G support are causing comment in the UK. As is the matter of which operator they're going to go with?

If Apple are really going to ship the iPhone as an EDGE handset, then their only choice is Orange who have the only remaining functioning EDGE network in Europe, everyone else having moved to 3G. As a long term Orange user this would make me very happy, because I'd probably be able to pick up the phone for free as part of my contract renewal which co-incidentally happens around October. The down side is that Orange are notorious for taking handsets, and loading them down with lots of operator specific junk. I'm unhappy enough when this happens to a perfectly good Nokia, I'd be outraged if they did it to the iPhone. As, I'm sure, would Apple...

All of which means that the old rumours of an Apple MVNO have to be dusted off and carefully considered, and you know what? In the UK, unlike the US, it makes a lot of sense. The MVNO is an established concept over here, with several very successful ones including Tesco of all people, and it would give Apple the end-to-end control they always wants with their products.

With the established operators against them, it might also be the only way they can release the phone here in the UK. Unless they want to sell a full-price, unsubsidised, unlocked version through their own stores. But if they do that, it will lack crucial features like visual voice mail, and I'm not convinced that the mature market in the Uk will tolerate a crippled version of the iPhone. Do you?

Postage unpaid from Apple? Español | Deutsch | Français | Italiano | Português

This report being carried by TUAW isn't good news. Until now if you've had a problem with an Apple product in the UK, and it was either covered under Apple Care or you were willing to pay its way, Apple shipped you a pre-paid container. You packaged up your damaged, broken or malfunctioning product, it was collected by courier, repaired and shipped back to you. All without leaving the comfort of your office.

I made good use of this service when the Ethernet daughterboard on my Powerbook died while I was in Japan and was really happy about the turn around time. At least once I'd persuaded the person at the other end of the Apple Support line that there was a real hardware problem with my Powerbook, and that they really did want to look at it. If true, the demise of the service is disastrous, and a real step backwards from Apple.

However as a major customer I thought I would have heard about this directly from Apple, at least got some sort of notification before it was discontinued. I haven't, so I'm writing this off as a weird rumour until told otherwise, does anyone have any confirmation?

Update: It now looks like this might be a temporary measure brought on by the closure of Celestica's Telford facility.

Now where? Español | Deutsch | Français | Italiano | Português

For the last few years I've got my broadband from Plusnet and watched it go from a moderate sized technically savvy company to a sprawling less technically savvy, or at least less responsive, company.

However during the entire time I've been with them I have had no problems and almost no down time, despite numerous hardware upgrades at their end. I've also now got an 8Mb/s connection for what I was initially paying for a 1Mb/s line. So no complaints from me...

Now I hear that they're going to be bought out by BT. I've been with BT, so it's time for a new broadband provider. Any suggestions?