Category: iPhone

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iPhone 6 Plus: 1st Impressions

iPhone6plus_in_my_hand

My iPhone 6 Plus (64GB Gold Unlocked GSM) arrived late yesterday afternoon and everyone has been asking me “how is it?” So I thought I’d give a quick 1st impressions post now. I’ll have a full review on Monday after I have had a chance to really use the iPhone 6 Plus over the weekend.

 

Size

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Yep, it’s BIG! However, it’s not too big. To my surprise using it with one hand and reaching things with my thumb from top to bottom isn’t the problem. Apple includes a new “Reachability” feature that with a double tap on the touch ID sensor (as opposed to a double press of the button, which invokes multitasking), the top of the display scrolls down so that you can reach stuff at the top. For me it’s more a “stretch” reach the opposite side of the display with my thumb. For example, when I’m holding it in my left hand I can barely reach the apps on the far right side of the display.Other than that I love the size.

The Pocket Fit

iphone6plus_in_my_pocket
the shirt pocket and pants pocket test

Yes, I’ve seen all the #bendgate stuff and I just smile. First off ANY aluminum and glass gear is subject to damage in a pocket without a case. I only recently started carrying my iPhone 5s in my pocket over the past couple of months. Prior to that I was always a holster guy. I’ll carry the iPhone 6 Plus in my front pocket and remove it prior to sitting down if I think that there will be added pressure to it. By the way, if you apply enough pressure to ANYTHING, it will bend!

The Camera

iPhone6Plus-shot

The Camera seems awesome and as good as advertised. I’ll spend more time with it over the weekend capturing images. So far I love it.

Speed, Apps, etc.

The speed is noticeable, especially the 802.11ac WiFi. Downloads are MUCH FASTER! I haven’t found any of my 491 installed apps to have any problems so far. No freezes or weirdness. I haven’t had it on battery long enough to judge battery life so you’ll have to wait till Monday for that one.

 

One disappointment so far

iPhone-6-Plus-standard_vs_zoomed

When setting up the iPhone 6 Plus you have a choice between Standard and Zoomed. Apple even lets you preview them to decide. With Zoomed the icons look bigger and better to my eyes, so I went with zoomed. Great! Happy! However, I didn’t realize until a little later in the evening that you give up 3 things with Zoomed. You give up the new landscape display of home screens.

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You give up the two column display in Mail and you give up the extended landscape keyboard. I switched back to Standard (which requires a reboot) to get these features back and I already miss the larger zoomed icons and display overall. I wish there was a middle ground.

iPhone-6-Plus-landscapehomescreen

 

The Bottome Line – So far, so good

Overall I’m happy that I went with the iPhone 6 Plus over the iPhone 6. My eyes definitely like the larger display. Check back Monday for a more detailed look.

 

On a side note – Finally a durable 3rd Party Lightning Cable

newertech_lightning_cable

While this really has nothing to do with the iPhone 6 Plus itself, I think I finally found a DURABLE 3rd party Lightning Cable. I have been frustrated by the quality of 3rd party Lightning cables to date. They either don’t work out of the box, stop working after a while or worse they start to fall apart where the connector connects to the cable. NewerTech makes this cable and I ordered a couple of the 3 meter version. I’m impressed with the way they are constructed. Definitely the best I’ve found so far.

0.5 Meter Length

1 Meter Length

2 Meter Length

3 Meter Length

 

iOS 8 Tips and Tricks

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Don’t buy another USB wall charger for your phone!

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Your smartphone probably came with a USB wall charger. Chances are you probably need or at least would find it convenient to have more than one. Perhaps one at your desk, one by the bed and maybe one in your travel bag. A quick check shows that the retail price of an Apple USB wall charger is $19. Of course you could get ANY 3rd party wall charger for half that price or less. However, even at $9 for a good quality generic charger you might want to consider a different option. If you’re buying a charger that’s going to have a permanent home under your desk, behind a nightstand, etc. then why not just get a power strip that also has USB ports on it? This way you could plug in your lamp, computer, speaker, etc. and charge your smartphone and/or tablet as well.

power_strip_USB_ports

I just bought 3 of these for use around the home and home office. So far they’re working out GREAT! Unlike most power strips/surge protectors this one has a longer than average 6 foot cord. It has a lighted power switch as well as 2 USB ports that can provide up to 2.1A of power, which is enough to charge an iPad. Also the fact that it’s a surge protector as well doesn’t hurt. The only downside is that the 2.1A is shared between the two ports. This means that you can charge two devices or one device at the full 2.1A speed. Yes, you can charge an iPad (or other tablet) and iPhone (or other smartphone) at the same time, just not two devices that both require 2.1A each.

Here’s the best part: This power strip is on sale for only $14.99, which is less than the cost of a name brand single port USB charger. Get this one and you can use the charger that came with your phone as a travel charger.

My other favorite USB chargers

lenmar_USB_car_charger

For the car, I like this one.

anker_40w_USB

For charging several USB devices at once I like this one.

USB_wall_outlet

For a permanent installation I like this one.

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For charging while traveling to hotel rooms with limited outlets, I like this one.

 

 



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8 Tips and Tricks for iOS 8

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Today is iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 plus day as well as many of you upgrading to iOS 8. I though I’d share 8 of my favorite iOS 8 Tips and Tricks that may not be obvious to many.



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Did your pre-order an iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 plus today?

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Today is the day that many have been waiting for. You can pre-order a new iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 plus and have it shipped right to your door. I know that many of you actually prefer the experience of waiting in long lines with others. Also many of you have no interest in the iPhone or will simply stick with their current iPhone for now. Let’s see what you did by clicking the appropriate response below:

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How to Use Photoshop Generator to Make iOS Webclip icons for your site

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In this episode of Adobe Creative Cloud TV, I’ll show you how to use Adobe Photoshop Generator to make webclip icons for your website so that when people bookmark your website to their home screens on iPad, iPhone or iPod touch they’ll get your custom icon.

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Are you missing out on my Bonus Content?

See more of my Adobe Creative Cloud Videos on my Adobe Creative Cloud TV and get the App below. It features EXCLUSIVE CONTENT that no one else gets to see. This episode has a BONUS CLIP that is available only in the App! My iOS App is a Universal App for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. I also have an Android version on the Amazon App Store:

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This Battery Came in Handy During the Last Power Outage

HyperJuice 2

There I am at my desk at 5PM on a Sunday and I can hear the rain outside. Next I hear the wind really whipping by and bam, there go the lights. After a few seconds the lights came back on and then after a few more seconds they went off for good! Sure my APS UPS Systems kept my Server and Internet Router going for a while before they eventually ran out of juice. Since I was headed out of town the next morning I just decided to relax and take it easy for the rest of the evening. However, the one thing that I definitely wanted to keep charged and running the entire night was my iPhone. I have a battery that I keep in my backpack which is good for a couple of charges, but I had never tried to go all night with it. Also while I was sitting at my desk I hadn’t plugged my phone in so it was already down to around 40% battery left. That’s when I remembered my HyperJuice battery that was also in my office and fully charged!

DTE-iPhone

I commend DTE Energy for having a nice App to not only report the outage, but get status updates and see what other areas are affected:

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The HyperJuice  to rescue!

hyperjuice2-ports

This battery is really designed to power your MacBook for long periods of time when AC power isn’t readily available. However, it also has a USB port for charging/powering phones and tablets. I plugged my iPhone into the USB port and not only did I wake up fully charged 8 hours later, but the HyperJuice still had plenty of juice to top off my MacBook Pro as well! When I originally bought this battery it was for long flights and being at seminars where there were no plugs nearby. I hadn’t carried it in a while and never thought that I’d be using it to get me through the night because of a power outage.

You can get/find out more the HyperJuice here.

BTW, it’s 2014! Can’t we agree that power lines should be buried? Sigh…



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Tired of dropping your iPhone?

kenu-highline

Chances are either you have dropped your iPhone or know some who has. Hopefully the case protected it and there was no damage. Unfortunately more often than not we know at least one person that has a broken screen right now. So far I’ve been lucky. I’ve had every model of iPhone since the original back in 2007 and I have dropped them all at least once, but no broken screens for me to date. Kenu, the makers of my FAVORITE smart phone car mount, the AirFrame have come out with a solution to cut down the chances of you dropping and breaking your iPhone or worse dropping it and not realizing you dropped it and you lose it. This product is called the Keuu Highline. It’s combination clear case (which I love) and a bungee cord that’s designed to attach to the bottom of the case. It has a quick release so that you can easily disconnect your iPhone/case from the cord. The cord can attach to anything from a belt loop to a zipper. Once attached you can drop your iPhone while in a standing position and the cord is short enough so that the iPhone won’t actually hit the ground. This is great especially if you’re going to be out and about, walking, taking pictures or sporting activities.

While I like the whole concept as a packaged product, what I found that I liked the most was the actually case. I love clear cases that don’t add a lot of bulk to the iPhone and this one has become my favorite. It’s just thick enough to add protection and yet then enough to not feel like your iPhone is in a case.

You can get the Kenu Highline here.

Also see it in action here:

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How To Shoot Tethered to Lightroom Mobile

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Lightroom has allowed for USB tethered capture from popular Nikon and Canon cameras for several years now. However, I can’t tell you how many people have asked me about tethering directly to an iPad pretty much since the 1st shipped in 2010. Four years later, while there are several shoot to iPad solutions out there, there still isn’t a way to plug your camera directly into an iPad and shoot tethered like you do with your computer and Lightroom.

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Here’s what’s in my Tripod Rig Setup Above

I personally use an Eye-Fi card when I’m out in the field and my iPad then becomes a nice big 10″ display to preview my shots. The Eye-Fi cards create their own ad-hoc network and therefore no hotspot is required. The images wirelessly transfer from my camera to my iPad. Now that Lightroom mobile is here, the question becomes can I shoot tethered into Lightroom mobile and the answer is yes! However, even though the answer is yes, it still involves your computer as there is still no way to connect your camera directly to your iPad via a USB cable and shoot tethered like you do with your computer. In studio I’m shooting either tethered directly to Lightroom via a USB cable, to my computer from my Nikon D4 via Ethernet or via the Nikon WT-5A Wireless Transmitter to a folder where the images are auto imported into Lightroom. There are two ways to shoot tethered to Lightroom mobile:

Before we get into the methods you’re going to need Lightroom 5.5 and a Creative Cloud membership. The Creative Cloud Photography program is affordable at only $9.99/month and includes Photoshop CC, Lightroom, and unlimited syncing to Lightroom mobile.

You can download Lightroom for iPad here:

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I call the first method “Selective Tethering”

lightroom-set-target-collection

Recently Scott Kelby did a post “My First Studio Shoot Using Lightroom Mobile” during this shoot he was shooting tethered from his DSLR to his computer running Lightroom 5.5 desktop. However, he did a very clever thing. He had a collection marked to sync with Lightroom mobile and his creative director was holding his iPad. He made that collection the “target collection” (a Lightroom feature) so that as he saw images coming in from his camera that he really liked all he had to do was hit the letter “b” on his keyboard to add those images to the collection that was sync’d to Lightroom Mobile. Now the creative director could see the images on the iPad from any location and help direct the shoot, make changes to the wardrobe, etc. Since Lightroom mobile is a two-way communication between the iPad and the desktop version of Lightroom she could also flag or star rate images on the iPad and those flags and ratings would appear in Lightroom on the desktop for Scott to look at further and tweak if needed. This is an awesome way to work and it allows you to show only the BEST images to your client, director, assistant, etc. However, it does require more interaction on your part as you have to hit “b” for each image you want to be added to the collection. I had never thought of using the Target Collection in this way and it makes total sense. This got me to thinking if perhaps there was a way to automate this so that each image would just go into a collection as they come in to Lightroom via tethering? Currently Lightroom mobile doesn’t support Lightroom’s Smart Collections. So I began to look at 3rd party plugins….

 

The next method “Tethering to Lightroom mobile”

LRm-iPad-Thais

Like I said above, I wanted a way to bring in all the images I’m shooting so I wouldn’t have to touch the keyboard every time I wanted an image added to the iPad/Lightroom mobile. After looking at Scott’s method above this definitely has some downsides to it. As you know not every shot is good. Sometimes the strobe doesn’t fire or the image is out of focus. Sometimes the model isn’t ready or you capture an awkward frame. Chances are you don’t want your client seeing this frames. If that’s the case you’re better off using the “Selective Tethering” method above. However, if it’s you and say an assistant or other person on set that needs to be able to see what you’re shooting via the iPad then you probably don’t care as much if a few bad ones get in. As a matter of fact if it’s an assistant they could be helping by “rejecting” the bad ones for you! My search for a 3rd party solution started and ended with Jeffrey Friedl’s “Folder Watch” plug-in.

watchfolder-lr

This plug-in was originally designed as a more full featured alternative to Lightroom’s Auto Import (what we used before native Tethering) feature. Sadly after I downloaded it I realized it wouldn’t work with Lightroom’s Tether Capture feature because it needed to do the import before it could add the images to a collection.I reached out to Jeffrey and told him what I wanted it to do and guess what? He immediately added the feature for me! Now with this “donationware” plugin you can shoot tethered into Lightroom as you always do and designate a collection to add the images to as you shoot. All you do once you create the collection is sync it to Lightroom mobile.

 

Share with REMOTE viewers too. On ANY platform!

lightroom-web

One of Lightroom mobile’s best kept secrets is that it’s not just for iPad and iPhone. There’s also a web component. If you head to lightroom.adobe.com and sign in with your Adobe ID you can all of your Lightroom mobile collection right in a web browser. You can click on any of your collections and grab the link for it and share it with whomever you want to be able to view that collection. This means that you can have a large audience watching your shoot and they will see your new images as you take them (by hitting refresh in the browser) pretty much on ANY platform.

Lastly don’t forget that Lightroom is also on iPhone now

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See my video here:




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See the current flow as you Charge your iPhone or iPad

joltz_pulsating_lightning_cable

The last time I was in Atlanta for Photoshop World  I took an Uber car from the airport to the hotel. I couldn’t help but notice the cable the driver was using to charge his iPhone. The reason it stood out is because it had a stream of pulsating LEDs that animated from the USB power supply to the iPhone. This obviously doesn’t charge the device any faster, it’s just cool to look at. I had forgotten about it for a while and then I remembered the cable and found out who made it. Joltz makes a Lightning cable version of this. On the USB side the connector is longer than usual and I’m guessing it houses a chip to control the animation of the LEDs along the cable.

Here’s how it looks in action:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMh20wUUdVQ

When the cable is not connected to the iDevice the LED light pattern just sits still and eventually turns off/goes to sleep. I like the cable a lot and my only wish is that Joltz would make a longer version. This one is only 3 feet long.  Charge your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch in style.

You can get the Joltz Pulsating Lightning cable here.

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My Favorite Smartphone Car Mount Now in White – Kenu Airframe

kenu_airframe_white

I use the Kenu Airframe everyday in my car. It’s attached to one of my center vents and I’ve been very happy with it since day one. It’s very small, pocket sized and spring loaded to make it easy to place my iPhone 5s or remove it with one hand. I have a second one in my suitcase for travel and use in rental cars. I’ve been able to use it every car I’ve tried to date. When I did my original review  last year, some questioned the negative effects of heat coming from the vents. First off I never have heat coming from the top vents. When I use the heat it’s set to blow from the floor vents. In the summer the top vents blow cold air from the air conditioner and I’ve had no problems thus far. Also some were concerned that it would block the vent and that is possible on cars with smaller vents. However, in most cars you can turn off individual vents if you’re concerned with the cold/hot air hitting the back of your phone. As far as blocking the vent there isn’t much you can do about that other than perhaps keeping it in the the vertical position.

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As you can see above I have the Kenu Airframe mounted with my iPhone 5s in the vertical position. You can simply rotate the phone as the mount is design to turn 90 degrees to allow for a horizontal display.

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The Kenu Airframe opens wide enough to accommodate both my iPhone 5s and its case. This is a must as I would not want to have to take the case off each time I got in the car. The new white model shares the exact same design as the original black one.

You can get the White Kenu Airframe here

You can get the Black Kenu Airframe here.

You’re also going to want one of these.