I was pretty excited when they announced the partnership as I had been wanting a decent IPTV service for quite a while. Well, it was finally released just a few days ago and I jumped on it. The problem is, it’s not really Foxtel.

There are a few big draw cards for using the Foxtel service. These include their “Red Button” service, which allows the viewer to interact with the stream and access things like local news services, alternative music styles on the music channels, etc. This service is just not included on the Xbox, even though shows still tell you to press the red button to access extra options. Another big thing is their sports coverage. As many people reading this would know, I am a Chelsea FC fan and I would love to be able to watch their games live without using crappy online streaming services that are just horrible quality. This is the thing that really annoyed me. Instead of including the same sports content as the people who pay for their traditional service get, they decided to create a new channel dedicated to the Xbox called FOX Sports Play. This channel doesn’t have anywhere near the amount of sport available as the traditional broadcast. It also does not show Premier League games live.

Of course, there was nowhere that said any of these things before I paid for the service for a month. While I understand that it is their first foray into IPTV and they may not get it right straight away, making people pay about the same price for a really substandard service is just wrong. This service doesn’t feel like Foxtel, it feels like one of the cheap alternatives, just not so cheap.

As you can see from the video above, multitasking is indeed in the system. I knew about this as soon as the operating system was announced back in MWC at Barcelona. There was a clue in one of the videos where the user pressed back and it actually went back to the running app.

All that said, there are a few things I’m disappointed at Microsoft for. One of the main reasons I liked Windows Mobile over other mobile operating systems was the openness with regards to development and customisation. Windows Phone 7 changes all that.

For one, Windows Mobile allowed you to completely modify every part of the OS. This includes the entire file system as well as the system registry. From what I can tell so far, there’s no chance of doing any of this in WP7. Of course, it’ll probably just end up like the iPhone where people will completely unlock it, but it’s just disappointing that you’ll even have to do that.

Another big thing is the lack of copy and paste. I mean come on Microsoft, you mocked the iPhone for not having copy and paste. Now you’re not going to have it! Microsoft say the reason they don’t have copy and paste is because they already know what most people are going to do with the information so they just add “SmartLinks” for commonly used tasks. Well, what if I want to do something uncommon with it? What if I want to copy some text into an email, text message or tweet? What if I want to share a link with someone? I don’t think these are actually that uncommon. Why not just allow people to do what they want with information instead of dictating what they do with it?

Windows Phone 7 has become a love hate relationship for me. On one hand, it’s a great improvement. On the other, it’s an iPhone. Be original Microsoft, you’re great at it.

The biggest example of this recently would be Sony’s new PSPgo. Here in Australia it has an RRP of AU$449.95. In the US, that price is US$249. How can Sony justify this? It’s nearly half the price over the other side of the world! The good news about this, however, is that Australian customers have realised that it is way overpriced and just haven’t bought them. Hopefully this will be a wakeup call for Sony.

Another example is the new Windows 7. There is absolutely no difference with the products you can get from the US or here in Australia, yet the prices are different. In the US, the Ultimate version of the Operating System is US$229. Over here in Australia? Once again, we’re ripped off at AU$430.

I constantly find myself looking at US sites for cheaper products than just go to my local retail store. The only thing these companies are doing is hurting the local economy and sending money overseas.

There is some good news though. I really have to congratulate Dell for not following this trend. Just yesterday I was looking at their website. They have a 21.5″ multitouch monitor for AU$499. I then proceeded to check the US site to see if they would be cheaper there, the monitor was US$469, which actually works out to be AU$508. That’s right, it’s cheaper here on the Australian website than the US one.

I really hope to see more companies following the trend that Dell are setting. It’s time companies got over the “local marketplace” pricing and realised that, thanks to the Internet, it doesn’t really exist any more.

Dear poedgirl,

This mail is confirmation that your subscription to Xbox Live Monthly Gold Membership has been cancelled on Monday, 20 July 2009.

When your Gold membership expires you will become a Silver member, and as a Silver member of Xbox LIVE, you will still enjoy access to the Xbox LIVE Arcade, game demos, trailers, downloads, and your gamer profile.

If you want to reactivate your Gold subscription to take advantage of all the features that a Gold membership offers, please go to: http://www.xbox.com/extendmembership

Thank you for using Microsoft Online Services.

Xbox LIVE Team

The funny thing is, this was just completely out of the blue. I just checked my email and there it was, finally, someone listened. Hopefully they won’t just stop at me, as I’ve seen quite a few other people have the exact same issue.

When month two came around I thought: hey, what the hell, and kept playing. I then contacted Microsoft and said that I no longer wanted to be charged after this point. This is where the problems start.

Microsoft told me then that they would downgrade my account to Silver at the end of the billing period. This is exactly what I wanted. The problem is, it didn’t do that. When the billing period was up, my card was again charged. I contacted Microsoft again and they said they would look in to it, I never heard back from them. Another month passed and again, I was charged. I contacted them again, same thing. Finally my house was broken into and my purse stolen, inside was my credit card, which I then cancelled and reported stolen.

Microsoft then started sending me emails saying that if I didn’t update my payment information, my account would be suspended. I was under the impression this just meant it would be downgraded to Silver until I paid up, exactly what I wanted. But alas, no. Microsoft, in all their retarded wisdom, instead decided to completely suspend my Xbox Live account. I can no longer sign in at all. Seriously, this has to be the most retarded thing I have ever seen. You have a free option, if someone doesn’t pay, just downgrade their account to the free one, that’s the logical step.

Of course, all of this could be cured by just having a downgrade option on the account management system itself. Surely quite a few people are in the same boat as me.

I have contacted Microsoft regarding my account suspension, but don’t have any hopes of getting my account back.

Another big problem I have with it is the fact that there is no way to make the screen display a limited amount of colours to save bandwidth. This is essential for attempting to use a proxied service over the internet. Aside from the screen update retardedness, it still goes extremely slow because it’s displaying all 16.7 million colours with no option to reduce them.

Back to VNC for me, there’s no way I’ll continue to use something so backwards.