Various and Sundry: Now Everything But Photography

I have software to do this at home on my computer (ProfCast), but since nothing beats the convenience of the iPhone for doing Anything Anytime Anywhere, I thought I’d suggest it here, or ask if anyone has seen an App like this out in the wild:

I want an App that will allow me to make a video slideshow that I can narrate.  Let me go to a folder of my pictures, pick the ten I want to show.  Let me then “begin recording.”  The first image shows up.  The mic turns on and I can talk over the pic.  When I want the next image, I tap a large button on the screen. I keep talking.  When all is done, I click the stop button, the iPhone creates a video of the pictures with my narration over top of them, and then I can upload the whole shebang straight to YouTube, the way I do with my 3GS videos.  Alternatively, let me download an uncompressed QuickTime video to my computer next time I synch up.

Is that too much to ask?  Does it already exist?  Even if it creates a video that I have to sync up with my computer to upload to YouTube, I’d be happy.  (I’d be doubly happy if that would help preserve video quality, too.)

I’ve seen slideshow-generating apps, but most expect you to have a song to play already, and then, at best, give you control of how long each pic should be on screen. I could use that, but it seems like a kludge and an awful lot of work.  I need simplicity here.

* I’ve discovered that you really have to whip that thing around on its side to activate the accelerometer enough to change the screen’s orientation. Also, it only works if you’re holding the phone in your hands, and not laying it flat on a desk or table.

* Tilting sideways isn’t universal.

* Wi-Fi is about 5x faster than 3G.  And don’t get me started on the pain that is Edge. The Speed Test app is worth the free download just to teach yourself that little fact.  I tend to keep Wi Fi off unless I’m at home, just to keep the phone from searching for a Wi Fi signal and draining its battery.  In the car, I use the ear bud that came with the phone instead of the Bluetooth earpiece.  And I don’t leave location search on until I need it.
* I wish I could subscribe to a podcast through the iTunes interface, instead of just streaming a show.  It’s also amazing how few podcasts there are under 10 MB.

* The Clock app’s alarm clock interface is so much easier and quicker to use than my old Razr phone’s.  (That’s right, I use my cell phone as my wakeup alarm clock.)

* I hate that Notes App font.  At least it’s not Comic Sans.

* eBay detects that you’re using an iPhone and gives you a very simplified version of its page. I like that a lot.  (No, I’m not using eBay these days, but I am checking on values of things in my collection, as I prepare to sell an awful lot of comics off.)

* I like how Apple does a 30 second TV commercial to highlight cut-and-paste.  It that ballsy, chutzpah, or just funny?

* The YouTube app is nice, too.  I like the search and the ability to email myself a link to a video I might want to later pass along or bookmark at home or something.  I also like how the videos play in landscape format automatically, with big control buttons.  It’s painful to wait on an Edge connection for it to load, though.

* I don’t use the new all-iPhone search right now.  Maybe that’ll change someday.  I only have three screens’ worth of apps, so I’m never lost.
* I wish iTunes would synch my camera pics, audio memos, and videos automatically, instead of making me email them to myself.  That’s just odd.  Or am I missing something? (Update: Found the voice memos in iTunes in their own playlist. Yay!)

Today, some apps that I’ve downloaded and find myself using the most:

Erica Sadun’s To Do app is barebones and featureless and a bit ugly, but it does the job I need it to do.  I don’t need anything fancier than this, thanks.  I probably could just use 37 Signals’ TaDaLlist.com, instead, but this is good enough for a few things at a time.  It’s also free.

I love looking up “To Do” in the App Store, because all the icons are identical.  They’re all checks over a box, with various color schemes.

TweetDeck is, no doubt, the most used. It’s the only way I ever want to use Twitter now, thanks.  Someday, I’ll get it linked up to my desktop client, but not just yet.  I don’t need it to be.  I don’t follow so many people that I get lost in the noise.

The USA Today app is good for a quick breeze through the news.  And once it’s done updating itself, the stories load instantly, which is nice.

Flight Control. Addicting little game.  My high score is 19.  Not the game that I’ll kill the most time with, but I like the interface, where you’re drawing landing paths for all the planes flying around, without letting them crash.  Games aren’t terribly long, either.

Tiki Golf 3D.  Fun mini-golf game.  The opening levels are challenging without being impossible.  I’m trying “Let’s Golf” next for a more serious golfing game.

iHandy Level.  I don’t know when I might use it, but I like having a bubble spirit level thing in my pocket.

Amazon.com. I’ve used the feature where you take a picture of something and they email you back with what it is a few times with great success.  Impressive, and very handy.

PhotoGen.  THE photo editing app for the iPhone.  Just adjusting the levels is enough for most pictures, but this also handles cropping, color adjustments, and all the standard stuff you could ask for.

Fieldrunners.  Desktop Tower Defense for the iPhone. The single biggest time sink on the iPhone for me right now.  I’ve played this kind of game before, but it still hooks me.  I screamed when I lost on level 99 the other day.  The game only has 100 levels. Ugh!

I’ll tell you the moment I fell in love with my iPhone, and it didn’t come until day three or four.

I needed to change the date of a doctor’s appointment I had coming up.  I had entered my doctor’s phone number in my address book on my laptop, so it had already synched up to my iPhone.  Great.  A couple of taps, and the phone call is made.

After I made the appointment, I realized I’d be going to my doctor’s office straight from work for the first time, and wondered what the quickest way to get there would be.

There’s an app for that: Google Maps.  I typed my doctor’s name and town into the search bar, and the first red pin on the map five seconds later was right.  I tapped on it, and it brought up a contact info screen with her name, address, and phone number.  I tapped on the “Add to Contacts” button.  I chose “Add to Existing Contact,” since she was already in there.  And bam, her address and Google Map location was saved into my address book.  No duplication.  Fit right in.

As for getting from work to her office?  I went back to Google Maps, where I had bookmarked certain locations — home, work, etc.  A couple taps later, I had the most direct driving route from work to the doctor’s.  When the time comes to drive it, I can turn on my GPS and see my progress in real time.  ( I used that feature to drive around a traffic jam in town already once. )

So easy, so smooth, so quick.

All of a sudden, I’m interested in maintaining an address book seriously for the first time in my life.  My phone makes it easy to wield it.  And the fact that I can easily access it all while I’m on the phone (assuming the ear buds or Bluetooth earpiece are in) is a wonderful bonus.

I will refrain, however, from taking my doctor’s picture in her office to add to my phone book.  That might be going a bit too far.

No App store?
Edge network connection?
Piddling 1.3 megapixel camera phone?
8 GB storage, at best?
No Video?
$599 price point?
No GPS?
Mono BlueTooth connection?
No compass?!?

Why in heaven’s name did you people buy iPhone 1.0?!?  That must have been like living in the stone age, and hunting for berries for lunch. . .

And why do I get the feeling I’ll be asking similar questions of myself with the 3GS in a couple of years?

After much wailing and gnashing of teeth, I drove over to the Apple Store last Friday, not sure of what I might find there.  I arrived at 11:45, and walked out with my new iPhone 3GS 32 GB black model in less than a half hour.  I only stood in line for 5 -10 minutes.  My name was on their reservation list, so I got to sit on the short line of a half dozen people.  This being Apple, the reservation list was organized by first name. They want to really really know you, as a friend.

The late-comers were on a second line about twice as long, and moving half as fast.  The store was virtually closed that day to all but iPhone buyers and those with Genius Bar appointments.  And the Genius Bar was booked through Tuesday, I heard the concierge tell one person.  People who wanted to walk in to buy computers ($1000+ items, mind you) were told to wait outside until they could find an available sales person.

The concierge introduced me to my salesperson, who found me in the computerized system easily enough (minus the glitch about a space being in my last name), and started taking me through all the steps.  The only hang-up?  My credit authorization wasn’t in the system, so she had to call AT&T to verify that.  That took at least five minutes.  She said to me, “We’ve had that error a few times today.  Nothing to worry about.  You’d think AT&T would be able to figure that out and get their servers working.”  “No,” I said, “nobody expects anything from AT&T.”  She didn’t say anything back, but she laughed a knowing laugh.  I don’t blame her for being reticent to blast an Apple business partner, but she knows as well as everyone else in that store where the weak link of the iPhone is.

They took my credit card and two gift cards I had saved up for the purchase, had me digitally sign a thing or two, emailed me my recent, and then took me over to another table filled with tech people whose job it was to plug the iPhone into iTunes to start it up.  After that was done, he asked if I wanted to set up an email account on the phone.  I did.  They listed Gmail as a possibility, so the tech handed me the iPhone and told me to go ahead and type in my name and password.

::gulp:: I’ve never typed on an iPhone before.  Now, here I was, standing in front of an Apple employee with hands that felt like sides of beef, trying to tap out my user name and password.  You don’t get the benefit of autocomplete when you’re doing that, by the way.

Took me three tries, but I finally got it to work.  My main problem came in typing the password, since keypresses are automatically replaced with stars as you type.

I pretended that I was trying different passwords and they guy laughed, “Yeah, we get that a lot.”  Did he know I was lying?

And by the time that flop sweat dried up, I was headed out the door with my new toy.

Let the learning curve begin!

Tomorrow: The Coolness of the New Toy.

An update to last week’s Apple Linguistic Mess post:

Apple iPhone Email, June 9:

Apple iPhone Email, June 17:

Same guy in blue, but now talking about your “pre-authorization” instead of how you can “reserve” an iPhone.  You’re “saving time” now, not “get[ting]” anything.

There are two possibilities here:

Last week, a reservation meant that there was plenty in stock and you’d be guaranteed your reserve.  This week, it’s getting closer, supplies are dwindling, and so you can’t be guaranteed an iPhone anymore.

Or, they realized that their language last week was dead wrong. As I’ve often said in the last week, making a reservation at a restaurant doesn’t give you “First Come, First Served” seating.  The small print last week indicated that.  The message was decidedly mixed.

I’d have pre-ordered my iPhone and had it shipped home, but I have two Apple Store gift cards I plan to use for this purchase.  The Apple Store doesn’t have a spot for them in its check-out process.  As wonderful and advanced a company as Apple is, it can’t even get its gift cards to work on-line?  (It was purposeful for the original iPhone, when they were limiting how many phones a single person could buy and needed your credit card for tracking purposes.)

We’ll see what happens on Friday, but I’m decidedly not optimistic anymore.  There’s a chance I’ll get an iPhone, but I’m not betting on it.  I’ll be one of those lunatics who checks a website somewhere daily to see where the next batch of units is shipping, and drop by there with my fingers crossed and money clutched in my hands. . .  ::sigh::

Every Apple keynote brings out the most insane overreactions and comments from the Apple Faithful.  Don’t get me wrong — I’m a drooling Apple fanboy.  I pre-ordered my first iPhone Monday night (I think).  I’m thrilled to be picking it up next week (hopefully).However, there’s an internet mindset amplified by the echo chamber of “popular opinion” and “conventional wisdom” that drives me nuts.  And then there’s the rush of coverage that falls over itself to get things out first.

Three cases of this have popped up this week, so far:

* People are complaining that they can’t upgrade from the 3G to the 3GS without paying extra.  I guess lots of people don’t understand the concept of a “subsidized” price and that they’re really spreading out the cost of the phone over the course of two years.  They’re not buying the phone any more cheaply than they did when it cost $599 on Day One.  Yes, AT&T may very well be evil, but this isn’t proof of it.  You’re just dumb if you don’t understand what a “subsidized price” is.  It’s a loan, basically, that AT&T gives you and you pay back every month for two years.  AT&T offers you the option of buying out your contract if you want to leave it early.

Here’s the best and biggest whiner of the bunch.  Thankfully, the commenters call him on it.  In his defense, he does have a legitimate complaint about confusion and AT&T not being able to communicate clearly.  Everything else?  Indefensible.

*Or, why not drop AT&T and spend $60 a month on a MiFi that you have to carry around everywhere with you to create a WiFi hot spot to use your iPhone in.  It only gets 4 hours of battery life, but it’s better than finishing up a contract with AT&T, right?

* People were disappointed that there was no “surprise Steve Jobs appearance” at the keynote today.  How in the wide wide world of sports would it have been a surprise, with so many people assuming/guessing it was going to happen?

Heck, given the way Apple Rumors go, it’s almost a bigger “surprise” that he DIDN’T show.

Words have lost their meaning, I fear.

* Even better, check out this link to a Gizmodo article titled “Everything You Need to Know About Snow Leopard.”

I laughed out loud when I saw it had to be UPDATED.  Guess it started off as “most everything you need to know,” eh?

From their iPhone email:

Catch that?  You can reserve your phone today.  Further on in the process, you’ll be told that you have to pick it up by the close of business day on Friday the 19th.

But, here’s the caveat:

Here, I’ll type it out for you:

“Pre-authorization does not guarantee iPhone availability at an Apple Retail Store. iPhone is sold on a first-come, first-served basis.”

So is it a “reservation” or a mere “pre-authorization” I did last night?  If it’s the latter, then I’ll redo the whole thing and have them ship the phone direct to my home or my parents’ house, where someone will be home to sign for a package. . .

So, MacWorld. . .

They announced iLife and iWork.  I own iWork and love the word processor.  But there’s nothing terribly sexy in the newness there, so let’s skip to iLife.

iPhoto gets an upgrade, notably adding geotagging and face recognition.  If I remember correctly, these are two of the big draws of Google’s Picasa, which Google just officially announced this morning would be available for the Mac for the first time.  It only took Apple a couple of hours to crush them.  On the other hand, Picasa is free.

iMovie seems to have added back a few features from what the previous iteration lost.

And GarageBand’s big new draw is downloadable content! You can buy music lessons from working musicians like Sting and Nora Jones for $5 a pop.  I’d be interested in seeing what those look like, but not enough to buy the whole magilla.

The good news is, you can buy Leopard, iLife, and iWork together in one box for $170. (Oops, it’s $229.  Still cheaper, though.)

There’s also a beta release of an on-line office suite kind of thing.  Eh.
There wasn’t a single word uttered about Snow Leopard.  Uh oh.  I think it’s time for Apple to stop thinking of it as a developer’s thing, and start thinking about it as a Made for Mass Market thing.  Is it anywhere near complete?  Are they just saving it for a special event in February or something?  I’m looking forward to the OS; I can’t help it.  I want to know more.

There’s a new very very expensive MacBook Pro which, amazingly enough, has a $50 option for a matte screen on it.  Wow.  Nice move.  Wish they all had that option.

And the big “One More Thing” news is that DRM is being banished from the iTunes Store.  Sure, it also means some variable pricing, but it means people like me won’t need to shop around to Amazon.com anymore for their music.  iTunes just won me back, for whatever puny amount of music I buy anymore.

The funny thing is, there are people who wanted to be disappointed in the keynote who are now saying iTunes is merely catching up to whatever everyone else offers.  Do they still not get it?  Don’t they realize it’s the music companies shooting themselves in the feet trying to deny iTunes DRM-free music that is now ending?  It’s a business negotiation — Apple agreed to variable prices, and the music companies finally gave Apple the DRM-free music.  Win/win for most people, I’d imagine.

How did my predictions from yesterday fare?  Pretty poor. Live and learn. Heh

By the time this is published, we’ll likely know how wrong I am.  I’m writing this Sunday night and Monday, but most of the news at these events winds up breaking the night before.  By publishing this on the Tuesday morning of the keynote, I’m already looking dated.

To recap: Steve Jobs is not giving the keynote, for reasons the blogosphere (myself included) have speculated over and analyzed ad infinitum.  I believe it’s a sound business reason; others take off their tin foil caps long enough to analyze the bacteria in Steve Jobs colon and tell us Apple is doomed and that the sky is falling. (Wait, that’s just Wall Street, isn’t it?)

So Phil Schiller is giving the keynote. From all accounts, he’s a decent speaker. He’s more a “regular guy” than Jobs, and fairly entertaining.  I’m looking forward to what he comes up with. I think the reason he is up there this year is due to (a) Apple’s pull-out from MacWorld in general and (b) an attempt to show that Apple is more than just Steve Jobs.  If you’ve been paying any attention at all lately, Jobs has been welcoming more and more people onto the keynote stage to help show things off; the stage has been set, as it were.  Now, Jobs is fading off stage completely for this one to let someone else steer things. I’m sure he’ll be back for Special Events to announce revolutionary new products, but I’m also sure that Schiller will have things to announce at MacWorld.

Why?  First, you can’t prove that Apple is more than Steve Jobs without letting someone other than Steve Jobs show off something new.  Second, Apple has taken a hit from the Apple faithful by pulling out already. Why exacerbate that by disappointing them completely with nothing new to buy?  Third, there are plenty of things due for a revision, including the MacBook Pro, the Mac Mini, and the Apple TV.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see something else entirely new announced, just to show how strong Apple can be without its High Lord and Master Jobs on stage. I can’t predict that one.

I don’t think Jobs will make a special appearance at the show.  That would only upstage Schiller.  Maybe he’ll appear in a video before the keynote to welcome Schiller in, but that’s about it.  Having Jobs be “One More Thing” completely defeats the purpose of this keynote, for Apple.

I do think we’ll see Apple TV 3.  It’s a MacWorld tradition by now.  Like Apple TV 2, it’ll be a software update for existing customers, and a slightly revved up chunk of hardware for new users.  It has to include more internet connectivity.  I can’t see Apple cutting a deal with Hulu, as cool as that would be. There’s too much bad blood between Apple and NBC.  Maybe there’s some other video sharing site that it could link into? What else is there? I can’t see Netflix integration, as they’re technically a competitor to iTunes.

The Mac Mini will get an upgrade, but I think everyone else has already predicted this. If they could make it under $500, it would really help them with the netbook crowd, until the iPod Touch Tablet shows up at the end of the year. ;-)

Snow Leopard will be demoed in more detail.  I bet they set a release date and price.  And I bet the price is under $100 this time.  $129 won’t fly for what many see as merely a maintenance release.

iLife and iWork will be updated, too, just to remind people that they’re still out there.

The general theme seems to be Macs in the home and multimedia.  So I think you won’t see a MacBook revision.  That’s more for the developers/  You’re more likely to see an iMac rev.  I don’t see a cinema display rev or addition coming, either.

Finally, apart from the keynote, I predict that Andy Ihnatko will join Scott Bourne’s latest blog on consumer digital video. Ihnatko has only mentioned a meeting between the two in San Fran with an announcement forthcoming.  This makes the most amount of sense to me.

(Since writing the first draft of this post, Steve Jobs issued a statement that he’s had some minor health issues that prevent him from doing the keynote this year.  That could, theoretically, invalidate everything I’ve written above.  We’ll see.  But I bet it means we won’t see him with on stage with Obama talking about being the new CTO. ;-)

YouTube – My Mac Screen at the moment

This is a short screen grab of the junk on my screen when I use my Power Mac tower (dual G5s) right now.  I’m assuming it’s the fault of the graphics card going bad. Wht do you think?  Does anyone else have any ideas or suggestions?  Has anyone had a similar problem on their four year old computer before?

Let’s face facts — iPhone developers don’t drop their prices for a day or two to celebrate anything. They do it to get coverage on Mac news sites and to artificially boost their sales numbers to, hopefully, achieve a top ranking on the App Store.

Not that I’m saying you shouldn’t take advantage of a $3 app that’s now $1 or anything, rather that we need to stop lying to ourselves.

Also: I have neither an iPod Touch nor an iPhone, so none of this melodrama affects me directly.

Otherwise, I might be tempted to explore Chuck & Molly’s Mac.

Ah, the glories of free hospital wi-fi. . .  Mac users: When in public on an open wi-fi spot, be sure to protect access to your computer.

And congratulations to the new parents, I suppose. =)

Update: Someone now has a MacBook Air attached to the network. So cool.

The ‘Brick’ is… | 9 to 5 Mac

The MacBook Brick is a block of high-quality, aircraft grade aluminum. It is the beginning.

The beginning of what?

It is the beginning of the new Apple manufacturing process to make MacBooks. It is totally revolutionary, a game changer. One of the biggest Apple innovations in a decade.

OK, that would be very very cool, and completely different.

Again, it’s all wild speculation, but I like the novelty of this rumor.