Posts Tagged ‘iPhone’

Here are a bunch of photos of Veronica’s first birthday week. Guest-starring my dad!

Usually when I’m editing video I discard probably 9/10ths of the video I shoot. For this video of Veronica showing off her latest tricks, I just let the camera roll and didn’t have to do anything.

Veronica playing with an iPhone in HD at Vimeo (it looks like Vimeo let me do two HD uploads this week!).

Peggle (iPhone edition) is pretty much the best $1 I’ve spent in years.

iPhone update 3.0 is a nice incremental update. Not as earth-shattering as 2.0, but still a solid step forward.

I’m only 95 shotgun experience away from my coveted fourth star (as in general’s star) in Quake Wars.

Final Fantasy Tactics A2. 112 hours later and I’m just about done with the last of the missions. So much fun!

Super Paper Mario for the Wii: the whole shifting dimensions between 2d and 3d is fun for a few minutes but the rest of the game isn’t much to write home about. It just makes me look forward to New Super Mario Bros for the Wii featuring four player co-op!

Resident Evil (Wii Edition): keep hearing it’s all that and a bag of chips. I found it barely playable even with the updated Wii controls.

Two years ago when the iPhone was released I had identified a number of items that made the experience less than perfect. Let’s take a look at where things stand two years later.

• Custom ringtones are a pain… Fixed!
• No real ?to-do list? application… Still a glaring hole, especially since Exchange sync is now in place for email and calendars. I’m using the Zenbe list appliation which is pretty solid, but I’d love to see more attention paid by Apple in this area.
• No WiFi or Bluetooth synchronization with iTunes… Still waiting for this one.
• Turning the unit sideways in Safari gives you the option for a much wider keyboard. Unfortunately, this doesn?t work in other applications. I want this widescreen keyboard option in all programs. Done!
• No spam filter in email app. Still waiting.
• iPod accessory compatibility… Much better, but still not 100% compatible with older stuff. Not as big of a deal anymore.
• No bluetooth headphone support for listening to music… Implemented for 3G and 3GS iPhones but not for us early adopters.
• The headphone jack is recessed so 99% of the headphones on the market won?t work… Fixed on 3G and 3GS.
• 8 GB of RAM is good, but I want more… 16 and 32 GB units available as options.
• An eBook reader… Stanza is an awesome free eBook reader from Amazon.
• GPS integration… 3G and 3GS have this.
• Get rid of radio-interference ?chirping? when plugged into external speakers… No progress. This one apparently isn’t easy to fix from what I’ve read.
• An option to disable access to AT&T?s EDGE data service… Still no-go. Conflicts with Apple’s business model so I don’t expect this anytime soon. I asked AT&T to disable this for my account across the board since old hacks don’t work anymore.
• An official software development SDK… Done!

Final score: nine items fixed or resolved out of my 14 original complaints. After living with the unit for a couple years, the last five that are left aren’t that big of a deal. Wi-Fi syncing as an example: really this would only apply to my music and videos which don’t actually change that often. Ditto not having a spam filter, most folks (including myself) now have this done via their email provider so it’s really not a problem anymore.

Some days it’s eerie how well the shuffle function on my portable Apple music player thingie works.* Witness the greatest playlist ever, composed in the silicon mind of MC iPhone.

1. Spinnin’ – Zero 7 (Kicked things off with a smooth mellow start, matched my mood perfectly)
2. Illumination - Thievery Corporation (The iPhone seriously read my mind in picking this track. Ups the energy a bit, throws in a nice steady eastern-influenced flavor)
3. The Mirror Conspiracy – Thievery Corporation (Another Thievery Corporation track, carries the relaxed eastern groove on)
4. Shadows of Ourselves – Thievery Corporation (Three in a row? Not sure this thing is really a random shuffle, but the selection works well)
5. Digital Underclass – Asian Dub Foundation (Picks up the eastern thread but takes things in a whole different direction.)
6. Le Voyage de Penelope – Air (It’s Air. Need I say more? Not my favorite Air track, but it works.)
7. Earth Versus The World – The Polish Ambassador (Here comes the beat! The previous track wound down the previous mellow mood nicely, this starts bringing the energy back up. )
8. Executive Memo – Hystereo (Crunchy beats with squirrelly funky breaks, continues the higher energy trend from the previous track)
9. The Four of Us are Dying – NIN (Now where’d this come from? Here’s a dark, ambient industrial track that slows things down and builds a very melancholy, introspective mood)
10. Dig Dis – Hank Mobley (Huge switch: deep industrial to light saxophone jazz – and it works brilliantly! Switches up the mood nicely without being jarring)
11. Save Me – The Donnas (Jazz to throwback classic rock? Again, a bizarre transition but it’s a great switch up that keeps things interesting)
12. What Do I Have To Do – The Donnas (Let’s take this rock thing and run with it!)
13. Cascade - Hyper (And to end things, a fairly smooth switch up from power rock into some rockish techno; a great end-cap to a solid set.)

To fully appreciate this playlist, two breakfast burritos, a cat, and someone you love are suggested (although not required).

_{* Yes, I know this is a basic reaction of the human mind to divine order where there is none.}

_{** “…wishin’ CPU could rock a beat
and hoping that if he does it isn’t weak, I’m
wishin’ CPU could rock a beat
nerd core hip hop could reign supreme…
making mention of my dj CPU
nerd-core hip hop is the style he use
step to my DJ, you better step prepared
he got 28 n 22/50ths squared
just a little more than the beat you thought…”
MC Frontalot}

I’ve put together a quickie app called DeEDGE to allow folks to disable EDGE access on their iPhone without mucking about in the command line. This is a version 0.1 release, I just wanted to get something out there quick before I go on vacation. Please read the README document for further information.

Download DeEDGE here

I’ve got a love-hate relationship with email. On a typical work day I’ll write a minimum of 30 emails and read at least twice that. When I get home, typically email is the last thing I want to think about. I try and check my personal email at least once or twice a week, but usually I’m pretty bad about responding to emails.

It’s something that I want to get better at, so I’ve been working on getting email up and going on my iPhone. After several weeks I’ve finally got it going (long story short, it helps if you type your password correctly). It’s pretty neat! The interface is intuitive and works well with the point and touch interface. So now that I’ve got this going, I have no excuse for not emailing more.

Apparently I wasn’t the only iPhone early-adopter upset about the price-drop fiasco (nutshell summary: 2 months after launch Apple dropped the price $200 essentially giving early-adopters a boot to the face). I’m happy to say that Apple faced up to the PR fiasco and will be giving all of us $100 gift cards to soothe the pain.

So less than two months after introducing the iPhone, Apple drops the price: by $200! This is awesome for everyone who hasn’t yet bought an iPhone.

I have already bought an iPhone so I’m somewhat frustrated. I always tell folks to wait at least a few months before buying any electronical product. In this case, I didn’t take my own advice, so I knew what I was getting into. Many times early adopters are basically beta testers that have to pay for the product (see: Windows Vista). But still… this feels like more of a slap in the face to the early adopters than was strictly necessary. I will be letting Apple know of my thoughts on the issue.

Update: Apple is giving us all $100 gift cards. Hooray!

Quickie update: an eBook reader is available for the iPhone! For the last week I’ve tested this on a book I media-shifted. Over the past few years I’ve read more books in electronic format in dead-tree format. The iPhone is without a doubt the best device I’ve used so far for this purpose. The iPhone screen is crisp, bright, easy on the eyes, and displays enough words to follow the flow of the book without getting constantly interrupted to scroll.