Apple Archives - Page 33 of 55 - Terry White's Tech Blog

October 15, 2009October 12, 2009

Sony DR-BT101 Bluetooth Headphones – Video Review

BT101

Earlier this year when Apple announced that the iPhone 3.0 and iPod touch 3.0 OS updates would now finally support stereo bluetooth headphones I began the search for the best ones. Unfortunately there was no one claiming to have found the best ones. All of the reviews I’ve found for the various models varied widely in opinions. I guess when it comes to audio everyone’s tastes and tolerances are quite different. So I decided to bite the bullet and start my own research project for the best ones. I’m starting with the Sony DR-BT101 Bluetooth Headphones. The only reason I’m starting with these is because they were very reasonably priced compared to the others I saw. Enough with the words, see my video review here:

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October 12, 2009October 12, 2009

Nike+iPhone – (Nike+) Shoes = Flexibility

myshoes

I’ve been a fan of the Nike+iPod kit since day one. Although I don’t consider myself to be a runner. I am a walker and therefore like to keep track of my walking goals and progress. When the Nike+iPod kit first came out it was a two piece kit sold by Apple and Nike. What you got in the box was a sensor that went into a special compartment in the sole of your Nike+ shoes and a receiver that attached to the dock connector on the iPod nano.

nikesensor

With this combination you got music while you ran or walked, voice prompts let you know your stats and distance to go and stats that would automatically get uploaded to your Nike+ account on the web each time you’d sync your iPod. It’s GREAT!

nikeinshoe

I’m an iPhone user though

When the iPhone came out two years ago I wasn’t really interested in carrying both an iPod and my iPhone. After all the iPhone has an iPod built-in. So I kinda got away from using my Nike+ kit. Sure I was still walking, but I just wasn’t keeping track anymore. Well when I upgraded to the iPhone 3GS, I was very happy to see that like the iPod touch (2nd gen), Apple had built-in support for the Nike+iPod integration. Now I could carry just the one device and I would no longer need the receiver attached to the dock connector. Cool! I still have my original Nike+ shoes and I started using them again. This is when I realized that I’m not always going to want to wear these shoes everywhere I go. I have nothing against Nike shoes (you should see my closet), but I just didn’t want to be limited to the one pair of shoes every time I wanted to walk and track my progress.

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October 9, 2009September 17, 2009

iPhone App of the Week – Camera Genius

camerageniuslogo

CameraGenius aims to give you more options for using your iPhone’s built-in camera. When you think about it the iPhone’s camera is OK, but limited in features. If you bought a stand alone point and shoot camera you would be able to do things like Zoom, set a timer, use image stabilization, etc.

More features for your iPhone camera

camerageniusmenu

Camera Genius adds some pretty useful features to the iPhone’s built-in camera. The first one that caught my eye was Zoom. This digital zoom feature allows you to Zoom in on the shot you’re taking with an interactive on screen slider.

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October 8, 2009October 8, 2009

NewerTech 3 in 1 Audio/Sync/Charging Cable + PowerJolt

NT3in1

A couple of weeks back I did a 3 part series on Travel Tips including some of my favorite gear to travel with. Of course I’m always on the look out for ways to travel with less and travel smarter. One of the tips involved traveling with both a car charger for your phone and an audio cable to take advantage of your rental car’s Audio In port. Now instead of carrying two different cables I’ve been able to consolidate down to one.

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October 7, 2009October 9, 2009

TomTom, $120 for your car kit? REALLY!!?

It wasn’t long ago that I reviewed the TomTom Navigation App for the iPhone. At the time the only other app that I had to compare it with was the Navigon app, which came out first. When the TomTom app came out it really wasn’t any better than the Navigon app. Sure there are some things that were nicer like more POIs, but overall the app had basically the same major limitations as the Navigon app. Well Navigon has released two updates since then and in the latest update they gave us TTS (Text to Speech) so that when you’re approaching a turn it says the name of the street that you’re about to turn on. This plus integrated iPod controls an automatic day/night mode and a few other fixes plus a cheaper retail price makes Navigon my app of choice. Check out the Navigon app here on the App Store:

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October 2, 2009September 27, 2009

iPhone App of the Week – Occasions

occasionslogo

One of the things that really bugs me about the iPhone’s built-in calendar is that there is no way to set an alert/alarm for Birthdays. They are already present in most of my Contacts. They appear automatically on the "Birthdays" Calendar, yet Apple doesn’t allow you to set reminders for this calendar without going through some workarounds. It wasn’t even until iPhone OS 3.0 that I had a way of subscribing to my Birthdays calendar on my IPhone directly. So there is still a LOT of room for improvement in this area.

Occasions

Occasions is an iPhone app that is designed to overcome this shortcoming. It automatically picks up the birthdays and anniversaries in your Contacts. You can also enter events manually if you need to. It then keeps a running list in chronological order of upcoming occasions. While there are many iPhone apps that do this including the app I was using before "Upcoming Events", this app supports the iPhone 3.0 Push Notifications feature. This means that the app can pop up alerts and sounds without being open! My old app still hasn’t been updated with this important feature so I’ve moved on.

occasions1

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September 30, 2009September 27, 2009

So why MMS?

MMS-picture

As you know AT&T finally enabled MMS (Multimedia Messaging) on the iPhone last Friday after Apple introduced the feature back in July with the iPhone OS 3.0 update. Although the iPhone officially had this capability when 3.0 was introduced earlier this summer, AT&T iPhone customers had to wait until the end of summer before being able to use it. Now that it’s on and working for most of us (some are still having issues. If you are having issues, you may want to check out this troubleshooting document), the big question that I’ve been getting from a few friends is:

Why MMS? Why not just use email?

After all if you’re an iPhone user, you’ve been able to send pictures via email on your iPhone since day one right? In an iPhone only world, sending emails is a good way to go. However, most non-iPhones, especially non-smartphones, something as simple as email can be a real pain. Many (probably most) non-smartphone users don’t even have email setup on their phones. So the email would go to their computers and they would see what you sent then. OK, what’s wrong with that? Actually nothing at all. Desktop email is a rich experience and once the picture is received it can be printed, added to albums and managed in a photo management program. It can even be edited. So then why MMS? I don’t think that it’s one or the other (MMS or email), I think it’s a matter of using the right one for the right situation. Think of why you send SMS (text messages) vs. email today? Usually if you send someone an SMS message it’s because you want them to read it right then and there and usually you want a response. "Where are you?", "Bring home dinner." "What time does the movie start." "I’m running late." etc. etc. You could easily send each of these via email, but the problem is they may not get it in time. So you send an SMS message instead because you want immediate attention.

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September 25, 2009September 25, 2009

iPhone MMS is here for AT&T customers! Sigh…

carrierupdate

As promised (late!) AT&T/Apple released the necessary Carrier update to allow MMS (Multimedia Messaging) on the iPhone 3G and 3GS.

When you plug your iPhone 3G or 3GS (not compatible with the original iPhone) into iTunes, and check for updates you should now see the update for Carrier Settings is available. I downloaded and installed the update which only took literally about 10 seconds to download and install.

updated

I didn’t notice any change at all until I powered the iPhone off and back on again. Once the iPhone came back up the preferences were there for MMS as well as the Camera icon in the Messages window.

It’s not soup yet

MMSprefs

As I expected everyone must be doing this all at once and of course testing it all at once and the servers are slammed! From my iPhone 3GS I get an error each time I try to send an MMS message although regular SMS messages go through. AT&T warned some customers (via an SMS message yesterday) that it may take time for the feature to actually work and it wouldn’t affect sending SMS. Well I’m seeing that "not working" that they mentioned. I tested another iPhone here and tried using it to send my iPhone an MMS and while it did send, I still haven’t received it yet on my iPhone 3GS (10 minutes has past). So once again we/I wait….

MMSsending . MMSerror

UPDATE! Turns out my initial sending problem was AT&T account related (old data on the account). Called them and they corrected everything. All set now.

What’s your experience been with this update/feature?

September 25, 2009September 17, 2009

iPhone App of the Week – PhotoScatter

photoscatter

I share a lot of pictures on various services. The ones I use the most are Facebook and Flickr. Sure I use Smugmug, MobileMe, Photoshop.com, Twitter, my own blog and others, but Facebook and Flickr are the ones I use the most often. Although I love the features of MobileMe, Smugmug and the others, the people that I share the most with are all on Facebook or Flickr.

Shoot it once, upload it to many

pscatt1

Photoscatter aims to be the only photo uploading app you’ll need. With Photoscatter you can upload to:

Facebook
Flickr
ShutterFly
PhotoBucket
Picasa
Twitter

all at the same time! Of course you can choose which services you want to upload to on an image by image basis.

This app is ideal for me. If I’m at an event and want to share a quick snapshot from my iPhone with all my friends, I can shoot it and upload it to Facebook, Flickr and even Twitter all at once.

pscatt-take-choose | pscatt-picture

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