Category: Apple

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The iPhone Book 2nd Edition is Now In Stock!

I’m very pleased to announce that my NEW BOOK, The iPhone Book 2nd Edition is now in stock at Amazon.com. I’m really excited about this new edition co-authored with my buddy Scott Kelby. We really sought out to improve this book from cover to cover. We’ve added a brand new "Killer Tips" chapter that is PACKED with tips and techniques for all users, whether you’re new to the iPhone or been using one since day one you’ll get some great tips on how to really take advantage of your iPhone (or iPod touch).

 

Reminder, submit your entries for the iPhone Photo Contest

In celebration of our new book we’ve launched an iPhone Photo Contest. There are only seven days left to submit your photos before the October 24th deadline. You could win a $500 Apple Store Gift Card among other cool prizes. See the details here.

 

So don’t wait, run out and buy a copy of the iPhone Book! Buy two. It’s only $13.59.

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New MacBooks Look Great!

I’ve been holding off getting a new laptop at work because I knew Apple was due to come out with some major changes to the MacBook line. So I’ve been plugging away with my now 4 generation old 2.33 GHz MacBook Pro. It’s still a fine performer, but it’s starting to show signs of its age. Well yesterday Apple revamped the MacBook lineup and after what I’ve seen, I’m glad I waited!

 

The New MacBook Pro

Apple has come up with a new process that involves making the case for the MacBook Pro out of a single piece of aluminum. This of course makes the case more sturdy and offers some potential weight benefits. too. All of the ports have been moved to one side and the slot loading Superdrive is now on the side. Apple has done away with the Firewire 400 port in favor of a single Firewire 800 port. Since Firewire 800 is backwards compatible (with the proper cable) to Firewire 400, this really isn’t a big deal although I will miss having two ports.

Apple also made access to the internal hard drive easier by locating it right below the battery. The front of the display is designed more like an iMac. The big news however is in the new trackpad. I’m going to reserve judgment until I actually get to play with one, but I’m not sure that I’m going to like not having a physical trackpad button. That’s right! It’s gone! You now tap the trackpad itself for everything. The new glass trackpad is like an iPhone’s touch screen. It supports multi-gestures things like a “right-click” via software. The older MacBook Pros allow you to turn on “Clicking” and “Dragging” and while some of my friends swear by this feature, I actually hate it!. So again, I’ll have to see what it’s like not having a physical button.

Apple also made a significant leap forward by going with Nvidia’s latest and greatest graphics chip. They are claiming 5-6 times performance gains, which will be great for the new Photoshop CS4 which takes advantage of your GPU.

One last thing, Apple made a new 128GB SSD (solid state disk) hard drive available across the line. So far I’ve not been impressed by this technology because for the price, you don’t really see a huge bump in speed or savings in battery. The MacBook Pro starts at $1,999. The 17″ MacBook Pro seems to have been left out of this round of updates. While Apple still offers it for sale on the store, it’s no where to be seen on the MacBook Pro page of Apple’s site.


Check out this clip of the New MacBook Pro Trackpad in action. Both Photoshop CS4 and InDesign CS4 take advantage of these new gestures. 

 

The MacBook gets a price drop and a new pro like model

The MacBook has always been like the baby brother of the MacBook Pro. It’s not as powerful, but also not as expensive. Apple lowered the price of the base model to $999, but also came out with a higher end ($1,299) model with many of the same features of the $1,999 MacBook Pro including the same aluminum case design. If you don’t need Firewire, an ExpressCard slot, a larger screen (13″ vs. 15″) or a faster processor (2.0GHz vs. 2.4GHz), then you could save yourself $700 and go with the new higher end MacBook.

 

MacBook Air gets a couple of bumps too

I resisted temptation when the original MacBook Air came out because I just couldn’t live with a paltry 80GB internal drive. Although 120GB is still not enough for my day-to-day use, it is enough for my wife. So her MacBook goes to my daughter and my wife gets the new MacBook Air! The MacBook Air also gets a much needed bump to the Nividia 9400M graphics card! The MacBook Air is still priced at $1,799 and up.

 

One more thing…

Apple also (finally) announced a New 24 inch Cinema Display that is LED based. I can’t believe that it has taken Apple all these years to begin to refresh their display line. Apple seems to have geared this display for portable Mac users. For one thing it has a MagSafe power adapter to power your MacBook directly from the display. Besides being LED based, it also has a built-in iSight camera, which is good and bad. It’s good because Apple stopped selling stand alone iSights years ago, but it’s bad for the locations that don’t allow cameras of any kind on the premises. I’m also stunned by the price. This puppy is $899 and that seems like a lot for a 24″ display. Yeah, I get that it’s LED based (which costs more) and that it has a built-in iSight and that Apple usually makes really good displays, but that still seems like a lot for a display.

 

The Bottom Line

Aside from the new Cinema Display, I’m psyched about these new products. I can’t wait to get my new work MacBook Pro. I’m a little hesitant about the new trackpad design, but I’m open minded enough to give it a shot. I am a little disappointed in the lack of Blu-ray support. Apple seems to be dragging their feet on this one in hopes that Blu-ray is just a fad and everyone will move to downloadable HD content from the iTunes store. While that may happen some day, I’d love to see Blu-ray movie playback on the MacBook Pro. If you’re in the market for a new laptop, you have a range of options here that should satisfy just about any user.

See yesterday’s Steve Jobs keynote address video here.

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iPhone App of the Week – i.TV

I never thought I would get excited about a TV guide app on my iPhone. However, if it’s well done and FAST, then I’m all in and that’s exactly what you get with i.TV. i.TV answers the question: "what’s coming on tonight?" The app is pretty straight forward. You start off by telling it where you are. Although the App supports location services, I still ended up putting in my Zip Code. Once I did, I got the choices for the providers in my area including Comcast Cable which is what I use most. As soon as a I made that my choice, that app started downloading the guide. I was on Wi-Fi at the time so the guide only took a few seconds to download. Once It was there, I could not only see the channels, but also little thumbnails for the shows that were currently on.

Great customization options

The one thing that is a must have in an app like this is the ability to narrow the list of channels down to just the ones YOU care about. I could care less about what’s on HGTV or the QVC channel. One quick trip to the "My Media" screen and I was able to edit down the list of channels to just the ones I watch.

 

But wait, there’s more

Not only do you get the listings for the shows, you also get a synopsis of the upcoming episode as well as a listing of upcoming episodes. If you register for an account on their site (free and optional), then you also get the ability to write reviews and give ratings.

Although there currently is no way to watch the show live on your iPhone, you can watch previews as well as see available photos from the show. There’s also a great search feature and the ability to see your listings by genre.

 

There are a couple of bugs

The first thing I noticed is that a few of my channels were missing! For example ABC HD in my area is on channel 231. NBC HD is 232, etc. Channels 231-234 and channel 300 (HBO) were simply not there. This wasn’t a big deal since the non HD equivalents were there (except for HBO). It was just weird that it choose not to show these channels. Perhaps on the next data update, they will appear.

This app also has a Movies/Theater option. Although my Zip Code and Country have been entered correctly, i.TV insists on showing me movies and theaters in Puerto Rico. I already have a great movies app (One Tap Movies), so I really don’t care about this feature not working, but it would be nice if this app could do both TV and Movie listings for me.  These aren’t show stopper bugs, but let’s hope the developer gets this stuff worked out soon.

 

My wishes for the next version

Other than fixing the bugs I noticed, I would pay money if this app could also schedule recordings on my TiVo HD. I know that the developer has no control over this, but I wish that either TiVo would release their own app or partner with these guys to add this functionality since their app already does everything else I would need.

 

The Bottom Line

i.TV is FREE. It’s got a couple of minor glitches (at least I ran into a couple, your mileage may vary), but they are definitely off to a GREAT start! It’s also faster than going to web based TV listing especially for jumping to a specific time or day, so it’s definitely worth a try. i.TV works on both the iPhone and iPod touch. You can download it here.

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Apple TV finally gets Video Playlists!

Although I’m a fan of Apple TV, one of my biggest pet peeves is that there was no way to play music videos back to back. This made no sense to me at all. I think it’s cool that if you’re throwing a party or just having a few friends over that you could not only have music playing in the background, but also the music videos themselves. Some music videos also make for good entertainment and conversation pieces.

Well Apple finally fixed this in the most recent Apple TV software update. Not only did they add Genius Playlist support (new in iTunes 8), but they also quietly added the ability to not only play videos back to back, but also shuffle them as well.

You can build music video playlists in iTunes just like you do music playlists. As a matter of fact you can even mix the two. This way you could create a mix of your favorite songs and throw in the music videos you have without worrying about be limited to just music videos.

While we’re on this subject of fixing things, the next thing on my list is support for the iTunes visualizer. I’m still stunned that Apple doesn’t include this in the Apple TV. I guess as a work around you could record it with a screen recorder app (such as iShowU) and then add it to your library as a video and play it that way, but it’s just not the same. This feature should be built-in to the Apple TV, iPhone and iPods.

 

Movie Rentals Appearing Sooner

I also noticed that Apple is getting some movie rentals quicker than others. I remember being very disappointed when Steve Jobs touted the iTunes movie rental feature and then said that they would get titles to rent 30 DAYS after they made their debut on DVD. That pretty much killed it for me. I was thinking "long live Netflix!" However, I see that they are getting some titles at the same time that they come out on DVD/Blu-ray for rent.

For example, "The Happening" just came out yesterday and it’s now available on the iTunes store for rent as well.

If this trend continues, it could sway me away from Netflix. We’ll just have to wait and see.

 

The Bottom Line

The Apple TV continues to get better with each update. It has become an essential component in my home theater setup. Apple TV starts at $224 (40GB version) at Amazon.com.

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iPhone App of the Week – EmailContact AND vCard Mailer

It never fails for me. I’ll ask one of my friends something like, "do you know a good carpenter?" Of course the answer usually is something like "yeah, I got a guy." Well I get asked for recommendations all the time. If you have someone that’s good enough to recommend, chances are that person or business is in your Contacts list. My problem with the iPhone since day one is that there was never a way to easily share a Contact with someone. So needless to say, I was pretty happy to see some apps on the App Store that actually allow you to email a contact to someone. That leads me to this week’s iPhone App of the Week:

 

 

EmailContact

This app allows you to select one of your contacts and email it to someone. That’s pretty much it! It converts the Contact’s info into text and puts it into the body of the message. What’s nice is that you also have the option of turning on/off various fields that you want sent or don’t want sent. For example, I sometimes put notes on my Contact records that are personal to me. So I wouldn’t want the Note field to be sent. No problem, just turn off the Note field. Or maybe you want to send the work phone number, but not the home phone. That’s not a problem either.

Like I said and show above with the first screen capture, EmailContact sends the Contact information for the Contact that you select, as text. So the recipient is going to receive the information as text in the body of the email. It would be nice if this app offered the option to also send the Contact info as a vCard.

 

Sadly it doesn’t, but I do have an app that does. So this week you get two iPhone app recommendations for one. I also use an app called vCard Mailer. vCard Mailer works very similarly to EmailContact, except that it sends a vCard attachment instead of text. So it really depends on what you want to send (text or vCard)? For me it depends on why I’m sending the info and who I’m sending it to. Just the other day one of my friends needed the phone number for someone that we both knew. Since the iPhone doesn’t yet have Cut/Copy/Paste, I wasn’t able to just copy the phone number to an email. So I used EmailContact to send the info that he needed. Next my wife asked me for the address of a friend of ours and I knew that she would want to put all of this particular friend’s info in her Address Book, so I sent her a vCard using vCard Mailer. This way she could just double click on the attached vCard and automatically import it into her Address Book.

 

The Bottom Line

Both of these apps are necessary because neither app does what the other one does. Could you get by with one or the other? Sure. However, if you want the option to send text OR vCards then you’re gonna need both. The good news is that they are both economically priced. EmailContact goes for 99¢ and vCard Mailer goes for $1.99. Both apps work on either the iPhone or iPod touch.

 

 

 

Bonus App of the Week – Obama ’08

OK, so now I’m going to recommend a 3rd app to take a look at. Let me start by saying that I recognize that you may or may not support Obama for president. So please don’t respond with comments on how much you love or hate him (I’ll just delete them anyway). I’m not interested in your political views just like you’re probably not interested in mine.

My point for talking about this app is that I’m impressed with the use of the technology! This app allows you to get news about the Obama campaign, see videos and even find your local Obama headquarters based on your current location (it uses Location services). There’s even a feature (Call Friends) that displays YOUR contacts in order by the battleground states (that they are in) that Obama needs to win the most so that you can call your friends and persuade them to vote. Pretty innovative, although I’m not sure that I would feel comfortable calling all my friends and trying to tell them "how" they should vote (just like I don’t want them trying to tell me how I should vote), but it’s a cool feature nonetheless. Republican or Democrat, this app is cool and very well done. Whether you support Obama or not, you should check it out from a technology stand point. I think this app could be the model for a lot of other apps that could provide similar info/features for celebrities and organizations. Get the Free Obama ’08 app here. Works with both the iPhone and iPod touch.

Although I don’t care which way you vote, I do encourage EVERYONE to get out and VOTE! This is one of the most important elections of our time!

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iPhone Photo Contest!

I’m happy to announce that my NEW iPhone Book (co-authored with my buddy Scott Kelby) is on press and days away from hitting store shelves. The original iPhone Book was chosen by Amazon as their #1 Editor’s Pick for Books on Computers and Internet for 2007! Needless to say, I was floored and humbled by such an honor. So that made me work even harder on the The iPhone Book 2nd Edition. I’m very pleased with the way this new book came out! We took it to a “whole ‘nother level.”

To celebrate the new edition we’re kicking off an iPhone Photo Contest! That’s right, you could win valuable prizes by submitting your best photos taken with your iPhone’s built-in camera.

 

  1. You can enter up to three photos (total) taken with your iPhone (doesn’t matter if it’s the original model, or the new 3G).
  2. There are five different categories; Friends, Pets, Family, Fine Art, and Office. The winner in each category gets a $100 iTunes Gift card and a copy of “The iPhone Book” 2nd edition.
  3. The Grand prize winner gets a $500 Apple Store Gift Card, and a copy of “The iPhone Book” 2nd edition.
  4. From the photos submitted by the deadline of Oct. 24, 2008, Scott and I will choose three finalists in each category, and then the public gets to vote for the winner in each category (the one getting the most votes wins). Then, from those Winners Scott and I will choose a Grand Prize Winner on November 3, 2008.
  5. This may seem obvious, but of course, the photo has to be taken with your iPhone’s built-in camera.
  6. You can edit your photos using any iPhone application available from the iTunes Apps Store, or any other image editing application, but no other non-iPhone photos may be included in your entry (so you can’t take your iPhone photo and composite it with a photo taken with your DSLR, point-and-shoot, or a stock photo).
  7. You may not give your iPhone to Jay Maisel, Joe McNally, or Moose Peterson. Not even to make a phone call.
  8. There is no entry fee, and the contest is open to everyone; You do not have to buy “The iPhone Book” to enter, but it certainly wouldn’t hurt. 😉
  9. Whining of any kind, about anything, is strictly prohibited.
  10. You can submit your photos, and learn more about the contest at the official contest site (here’s the link).

 

I can’t wait to see all of your cool shots. Good luck and happy shooting!

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iPhone App of the Week – ToDo

todo listsOne of the things that I’ve wanted since day one, last year for my iPhone was a To Do feature. I always thought that it was odd that Apple included To Do’s in both iCal and Mail on the desktop in Mac OS X, but not in the iPhone. I still think it’s strange. However, now that the iPhone is open to 3rd party apps, I no longer have to wait.

 

There are several choices out there

What I thought would be a rather simple app to buy/download, turned out to be more challenging. What I mean is that there are at least a half dozen To Do apps for the iPhone (probably more), and they range in price from FREE to $9.95. What I found is that not everyone thinks of To Do’s the same way that I do. What I wanted was an app that would let me create multiple lists, QUICKLY add items to those lists, and then check them off as they were done. I look at To Do lists in a couple of ways. I might create a To Do list for the things that I need to get done on a given day: ie. go to the cleaners, call my sister, get a car wash, record a podcast episode, etc. Then I might want a list of things not to forget before I leave for a trip. Such as a packing list for a photo shoot. I might also want to put a task on a certain day when it’s actually due and give those items a priority. Pretty basic stuff! No rocket science here. What I found was that most of the apps out there were either “too basic”, which means they didn’t offer the features I wanted or they were WAY OVER COMPLICATED! Amazingly over complicated in some cases. It shouldn’t take 50 taps to enter a To Do item.

I finally found the right one

After trying two different To Do apps, the 3rd one was a charm. It’s called….wait for it…….”ToDo”! Genius! This app shouldn’t be confused with the other one out there called “To Do”. ToDo does EXACTLY what I want it to do (wow, that was bad). It’s by a company called Appigo. Not only does it do what I want, it’s also got a great UI (user interface) too. Very clean and graphically neat.

Two ways to enter your To Do’s

Like I said, it shouldn’t take 50 steps to enter a To Do item. Luckily, ToDo has a “Quick Add” task entry feature. This allows you to quickly add a task and just the task itself. If  you want to get really specific about due dates, priorities, repeating, etc., then you can use the regular task entry method (pictured above) and even that one is well thought out and doesn’t take too long to complete.

Once your list is entered, there is also a very neat selection of “done/strike out” graphics. So when you check things off, you get a nice graphical display (of your choice) to distinguish between the completed items and the ones still left to do.

If you have one or more tasks due “today” then you will see a numeric banner on the app’s icon indicating that something is due today. However, until Apple turns on background processing for 3rd party apps (rumored to be in the upcoming iPhone/iPod touch 2.2 update), this feature will only work, if you actually go into the app at least once on the day that something is due or while the apps is running.

 

The Bottom Line

There is a feature in ToDo to allow you to sync your ToDo’s to the web or to your desktop. I have not tried this feature as I simply don’t need it. I need my lists on my iPhone while I’m running around. Having them on my computer would be nice, but not necessary. Sure, there are free ones and cheaper ones out there. However, this one does things EXACTLY the way that I want to work and therefore it was worth the $9.95 to me. Although ToDo satisfies my immediate needs, there is room for improvement. For example, if I create a task “Call Steve”, then it would be nice to actually be able to dial Steve’s number right from the ToDo app.

Update: Blog reader Jan pointed out to me that you can in fact setup a task to do a call directly from the app by using the longer entry method and changing the Type from Normal to “Call” and then you’re prompted to choose a Contact from your Contacts. When you actually tap the task when you want to make the call, you’re then presented with a popup of all the numbers you have for that contact to dial. Very slick! Thanks Jan! The other types are “Email a contact” and “Visit a website”. Email a Contact brings up your contacts to choose and Visit a website allows you to enter a URL. I’ll be using that one a lot as I always see ads for websites that I want to visit later and of course forget the URLs by the time I’m able to visit the sites.

Also, I’d like to see a permanent list feature. I’m not sure (I need to do more testing), but it seems that once you complete the items on a list, that list eventually clears itself of all tasks. I’m not 100% sure of this, but one of my completed lists was blank when I went back to it days later. I would like to keep the items on some lists so that I can use the list (say a packing list) over and over again. As a work around you could always keep one item on the list that is not done. Again, I need to do more testing to see how this actually works. I may have lost the items on that particular list due to an update of the app.

An example of one of my packing lists

 

You can get ToDo from the App Store by going here. ToDo works on the iPhone or the iPod touch.

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iPhone App of the Week – Dashbuster

My pick for this week’s iPhone app of the week is Dashbuster! Dashbuster is an app for the iPhone and iPod touch that allows you to manage either your Netflix or Blockbuster (or both) movie queues. I’ve been a Netflix junkie for years! I usually have no less than about 80-90 movies in my queue at all times. Netflix just makes it so painless to rent movies and they started the whole “keep it as long as you want with no late fees” thing, which was perfect for me.

 

Why use this app to manage your queue?

Since I’m into to movies, the conversation usually comes up at some point when I’m talking with friends, family and colleagues about favorite movies or movies that they’ve recently seen that were good. The problem is, I’m never gonna remember the names of those movies. Now I can whip out my iPhone and add the movie to my queue right there on the spot. Now this isn’t the first Netflix iPhone app I’ve tried. There was one that I was using called iFlix (which seems to have been removed from the App store) and I really like iFlix, but there was one thing that pushed me over the edge to buy Dashbuster and that was the way they handle “Saved” movies.

A “Saved” movie is one that you add to your queue that isn’t actually out on DVD yet. I LOVE THIS FEATURE! Although I do a lot of movie renting, I also actually go to the movies from time to time. It never fails that while I’m sitting there watching the previews, I think “wow, that looks like a cool movie, but I may not get to see it in the theaters.” So I want add it to my Netflix “Saved” queue while it’s fresh on my mind. Now I can sit there and add them right after I view the Preview. iFlix allowed this too, but it didn’t break out the “Saved” movies from the “Queued” movies the way that Dashbuster does. That little feature was enough to make me buy and download Dashbuster even though I already bought iFlix.

 

Complete queue management and more

You can not only add to your queue, but you can also change the order in which they will be shipped. Of course you can also remove a movie from your queue with a swipe of your finger. There is also a really good search feature to find the movies you want to rent. Can’t think of a movie to rent? Use the RSS Feeds feature to see the Top rentals in each genre including the Top 100 rentals overall. Although I’m a Netflix customer, this app works for either Netflix or Blockbuster accounts or Both! This app is also quite stable and works as advertised.

 

Dashbuster goes for $3.99 there is a FREE Dashbuster version, but the free version doesn’t allow you to add movies to your queue. Dashbuster works on the iPhone or iPod touch.

 

Joy of Tech
Joy of Tech
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2 Important Updates – iPhone 2.1 and Mac OS X 10.5.5

It’s bug fixing time at Apple!

On Friday Apple released the highly anticipated iPhone 2.1 update! I wanted to use it for a few days before passing judgment on what it fixed vs. what it didn’t fix. This was not a feature update. In other words it didn’t include Cut, Copy & Paste as some had rumored, it was mainly geared at fixes a boat load of small issues that were frustrating some users. One of the main things it was to fix was the high rate of dropped calls that some users were experiencing. Since I wasn’t experiencing a lot of dropped calls, I can’t speak to if this is better or worse now. My call quality has been good since day one and seems to be the same with 2.1. The other 2 important areas were App Crashes and Performance. Now those two areas I can speak to. As I’ve said in the past, I’ve got over 1,000 contacts on my iPhone. So when 2.0 came out the first thing I noticed was that the contact list was so slow that it was almost unusable. Each update made it faster, but 2.1 actually gives me about 98% of the performance I was seeing with 1.1.4. I don’t want to say 100% because it does still lag for about a second or two sometimes.

As far as App Crashes go, this is a mixed bag. The problem is that if an app crashes now, well it’s hard to say if it’s Apple’s fault or the fault of the app not being updated for 2.1 yet. I was still getting a few crashes in Safari on certain sites, but I haven’t had a Safari crash since 2.1 has been installed. However, my Facebook app (which has not been updated) locked up the whole iPhone (needed to reboot it) when I tried to use the camera function with it. So again is that the fault of the app or 2.1? Hard to say.

If I had to say, I would say that 2.1 is definitely a BIG IMPROVEMENT over all. The iPhone does seem more responsive and like I said, I haven’t seen any real crashes (except the one) all weekend.

If you have more than a few apps, you’ll love how much faster Backing up and syncing is. Also installing apps is way faster.

I also should mention that Apple plugged several security holes including the one that someone could gain access to your contacts using the emergency dial feature. So you should install 2.1 if for no other reason than to make your iPhone more secure.

 

Little things that have changed in the iPhone 2.1 update

Like I said, this is not supposed to be a new features release, but that never stops Apple from slipping in a small change here and there. One thing you’ll notice is that now when you receive an SMS text message, your iPhone will now sound the alert up to two more times after the first time in about 3 minute intervals. This is for those folks that complained that if they missed it the first time, they wouldn’t know they had a message waiting without looking at the screen. Unfortunately there is no preference for this. So everyone gets this feature whether you wanted it or not.

You can also create Genius Playlists now (a feature in iTunes 8) right in the iPod app on the phone. I didn’t see it at first and I knew it was supposed to be there. The reason I didn’t see it was because I sync my iPhone to two different computers. One for data and one for media (music, movies, etc.). It wasn’t until I sync’d it with the computer that holds my music, that that feature became active.

No more app updates screwing up your custom home screen configurations! This is a biggie! One of the things that frustrated me and several of my friends is that you spend time putting the apps in the order you wanted them in on your iPhone only to have that order screwed up when you did an update to one of your apps by sticking the update at the end on the last page. Now when you do an update, it does temporarily put it at the end until it’s done and then replaces the old app in the same spot! Yay!

Wipe it automatically if someone tries to break in! Now there is an option that when you set a PIN on your iPhone you can optionally have it automatically wipe the iPhone if someone tries to enter the wrong PIN (guessing it) 10 times in a row. By the way I highly recommend setting a PIN on your iPhone. There some myths around this feature and let me clear them up now. The biggest thing people tell me is “hey I don’t want to have to enter a PIN to answer my phone!” OK good, because you don’t! Even if your iPhone is secured with a PIN you don’t have to enter it to answer a call. You only have to enter to make a call and only after the PIN has kicked in, which that interval is up to you. For example, on my iPhone I have it set to an hour. If I haven’t touched my iPhone in an hour, it automatically locks and requires a 4 digit PIN to use it again. You can go from immediately to 4 hours. When I’m on the road I change it to 15 minutes. This way if I lose my iPhone or if it’s stolen, I don’t have to worry about someone picking it up and just start using it and worse getting access to all my info on it. Because my iPhone is now setup to use Exchange, if it ever does come up missing, I can have my IT folks at work wipe it clean remotely. Once the wipe starts, there is nothing that can stop it. Not even turning it off or removing the SIM card. Once you turn it back on the wipe continues. Pretty James Bond’sy. The last myth is: “What if it’s an emergency and I need to make a call?” If you’re in an accident and someone needs to dial 911 on your iPhone but you’re unconcious and they can’t get the PIN out of you, there is an “Emergency Call” button that is accessible even when the iPhone is locked with a PIN. So there is no excuse, go Turn your Passcode on right now!

 

Cosmetic changes too. The 3G and EDGE display is different. Apple used to put a box around the “3G” and reverse it out, now the box is gone and it just says “3G”. Also now when you watch a movie (video, video podcast, etc.) and you don’t finish it, there will be a circle in front of it that is half filled in. So the blue dot means you haven’t watched it yet, no dot means you have watched it completely and a half dot means you started it but didn’t finish it.

It’s all good! Now Apple please return to adding more features that we want.

 

Mac OS X 10.5.5

Mac OS X 10.5.5 came out yesterday and fixed a slew of bugs. I read through the list saying, “oh that’s good, oh that’s a good one”, but in all honesty I haven’t really noticed a difference. Granted it hasn’t even been 24 hours yet, but I wasn’t really having any major problems with 10.5.4.

The one thing I would like to see addressed and I thought it was in 10.5.5, but I read it wrong, was the ability to sync subscribed iCals up to Mobile Me. It’s just lame that I can’t wireless sync my family and organization calendars to my iPhone because I use Mobile Me. If I sync them over USB I can! Apple also treats the Birthdays calendar as a subscribed calendar too. So no birthdays on the iPhone – LAME!

I do have a work around though. Since Birthday calendars, user group meeting schedules and Holiday calendars don’t change often, I exported those “subscribed” iCals out and then imported them back in as NEW iCals. That way the new ones are not subscribed to and therefore sync up to Mobile Me and my iPhone. This is a temporary work around as I’m hoping this issue will be fixed in the not too distant future.

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iPhone App of the Week – Air Sharing

Air Sharing documents

My iPhone app pick this week is the insanely great Air Sharing app. This app quite simply allows you to wirelessly transfer documents to your iPhone or iPod touch for viewing on the go. Once you download/install the app, you launch it and it immediately displays the IP address that you need to connect to your iPhone from either your Mac or PC using the standard WebDAV protocol. Once you connect from your computer, you can just drag the files over that you want to take with you. These files can be the file formats that are supported on the iPhone such as PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, JPEG, Keynote, Pages, Numbers, Movie files, etc.

This is great for people who want to take complex documents with them such as spreadsheets, maps, diagrams, PDF manuals, lists and other such documents.

Once the app was running on my iPhone, I just hit Command-K from the Finder on my Mac and keyed in the URL. I was prompted to enter my user name and password (which I setup in the app on the iPhone) and bam, I was connected and saw a window with the sample files that they provide. I created a folder (an optional step – hey I like to keep things neat) and copied over my files. It’s also VERY FAST!

The file below is a 1.5MB PDF file and the cool thing is that it rotated the display when I rotated my phone.

 

I transferred over PDFs, Excel, JPG, Movies (.m4v), and PowerPoint files. All worked perfectly except the PowerPoint file. My guess is that it was just too big (27.9MB) and crashed when I tried to view it. Perhaps it will work better with larger files with the iPhone 2.1 update (also due out today). You can also delete files directly from the App without having to connect to your computer to do so. A nice touch.

I can’t get over how easy this app is to use and I love that it doesn’t require you to install anything special on your computer to use it. What is there to say? It works! Now for those of you who are interested in EDITING these files, you’ll have to continue to wait. The iPhone currently doesn’t have a feature that allows editing of Word, Excel, Pages, files yet. Maybe some 3rd party developer (such as Dataviz) will provide an app that allows you to do this. For right now, it’s about viewing.

 

The Bottom Line

There is no magic here. You can email yourself any of the above file types and view them as email attachments. However, what this app does is take the email equation out of it. You simply transfer the files over to your device and view them whenever you need to without having to find which email they were attached to. Also you’ll only be able to view the types of files that the iPhone/iPod touch currently allow you to view/play. If you need to have documents on the go with you, this is your app! For a limited time the good folks over at Avatron Software are offering this app for FREE! They will start to charge $6.99 for it. So grab it while the grabbing is good. You can get it here from the App store.

I want to thank my buddy Scott Kelby for turning me on to this cool app!