Posts Tagged ‘iPhone’

Apple released the iPhone IOS4 software update late on June 21, 2010. The update took well over an hour to download and then sync up with the iPhone but it was well worth it.

Among the many new features, the new IOS4 update allows for the iPhone to work with wireless Bluetooth keyboards. I took the new feature for a ride and started blogging.

Did you find any other cool features in the IOS4 update? Drop a Comment below and share.

You can use the combination of two apps, Camera A and Camera B, to allow your iPhone’s camera to be shared on your iPad.

I thought this was cool because this gives the iPad an input device. You can see the iPhone viewfinder on the iPad and you can snap pictures.

This Bluetooth-enabled combo will be much more interesting once the iPad adds multitasking, which is in the works.

Camera A is free and it goes on your iPad. Camera B is $0.99 and it goes on your 3Gs iPhone.

If you decide to try it out, come back and drop a comment.

The iPad will never replace my desktop, but it has already replaced my laptop after just two days.

I love, love, love it!

@JesseLuna said it best: “If HBO was your ‘home box office’, then the iPad is your ‘mobile box office’.”

It’s also a dream for reading, blogging, and managing social media networks on a realistically readable device. (I love my iPhone, but the small screen has its limitations.) I know I will be using my iPad for most of what I do as a non-techie user. I also know I will still need to go to my desktop for large professional projects and probably most photo editing. (More on photos later.)

My setup consists of the iPad, the Apple cover, the Apple Bluetooth keyboard, a stand, and a lap desk. (And sometimes earbuds.) This is perfect for sitting in an armchair. Of course, if I were at a desk or table, I would not need the lap desk. Also, when lounging in bed the stand is too precarious, so I just lay the iPad flat on the lap desk. The Apple cover is made of a grippy rubber material that doesn’t slide around at all, which is awesome.

Being a creature of habit, the first things I tried on my new iPad were all the things I already used on my laptop and/or iPhone: Safari, Gmail, Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, Netflix, Scrabble, Momento, iTunes, Wikipanion, and Notes.

Overall, these all worked as well or better than the on the laptop/iPhone. There are a few tiny glitches, where features don’t work the way I expect, but all of them are software issues, which I’m sure will be addressed by the developers.

Aha! moments:

- streaming Netflix in bed (with earbuds) while my husband sleeps

- stocking my iBooks shelves with free texts thanks to Project Gutenberg

- writing this blog post in Pages which I will later email to @JesseLuna

All of these tasks could be done with some other gadget or device, but before now I would have used a separate gadget or device for each activity.

New stuff I love on the iPad: Pages, iBooks ereader, Marvel comics viewer, Toy Story read-along, NPR, USA Today, and ABC viewer. Gorgeous picture quality, leagues better than my (10-year-old) PowerBook. Super-fast over WiFi. Screen size is perfect for personal viewing. So many options – both media and content!

Stuff I haven’t done, yet, because it isn’t supported: Hulu.

Stuff I haven’t done because I haven’t bought the right app(s): games.

A final note on photos: there is a camera connecter accessory, but I didn’t buy it. I simply took photos with my iPhone, emailed them to Flickr. On the iPad I opened the Flickr app, selected my image and saved it to my Photos, then accessed it from there. That works fine for me.

Instant Tweetup is a free iPhone application that allows users to find nearby Twitter users and send them tweets.

How Does Instant Tweetup Work?

Once launched, the application requests permission to use your current location. By providing your location, the application can scan your immediate geographical area and find Twitter users who:

1) Have set their “Location” settings in that area or,
2) Have their “Tweet Location” option on and have “checked in” nearby.

This “Tweet Location” feature is an opt-in feature that was added to Twitter a few months back. You can turn this on by going to Settings > Account > then checking on the “Tweet Location” checkbox. I tweet from home a lot so I have this turned off.

Once you use the application to find nearby tweeps, you can “@” message them an invitation to meetup with you and optionally include a bit.ly map link with your current location. You do not have to be following these Twitter users. The message is a simple “@” reply, not a Direct Message.

Possible Uses

1) Find nearby tweeps to follow. This works best if you already know the people. For example, you can follow nearby friends, schoolmates or workmates that you haven’t connected with on Twitter.

I personally follow a broad range of people on Twitter, but have also tried to find people in my home county to follow. This has worked well for me in terms of business networking. However, following people within a one to ten mile range (the Instant Tweetup range) in my small town is a bit too close for comfort. Imagine following someone and discovering they live on the same block. That could get strange.

2) Use Instant Tweetup to announce product or service offerings if you are a business. You wouldn’t want to blast it out to everyone all the time since some people will show up because they live nearby, not because they are looking to shop. For example, if you are the local sub shop, you could use Instant Tweetup to offer a special to nearby tweeps who are talking about lunch. If they are following your business this is an instant win, but if you haven’t connected with them yet then this could be considered spam.

3) Tweet out a business offer at a major event. If you’re at the Staples Center watching the Lakers wipe the floor with Seattle, for example, a concession stand or volunteer booth could tweet out an offer to those who are obviously at the Center.

4) Use it for an instant tweetup. Yes, if you have a group of friends in a nearby location, you can message them all and set a meeting place. “@MyGoodFriendJoe In line at Pinks in Hollywood, come and join me if you’re hungry! bit.ly/maplocation.”

One thing to keep in mind is that if you are tweeting these messages out with the map locations, you’re providing your location to the world.

Enhancements I’d like to see

1) Provide a way to filter out random people and only show Twitter followers. Depending on the context and the message, tweeting invites and your location at random people in your immediate vicinity can be both spammy and creepy.

I contacted Keith Moon (@keefmoon on Twitter), Instant Tweetup’s developer, and he said that he plans on adding color-coding to the results list to indicate if someone is a follower. That’s a step in the right direction.

2) Provide an opt-out feature. Right now, to “opt-out” of the Instant Tweetup application, a Twitter user would have to turn off their geolocation setting and also remove their Location setting. This would be an important feature request if people started using the application in a non-targeted manner. If a local business started sending out tweets at me every single day at lunch time, I’d eventually want to turn it off.

QUESTIONS

Do you have any other suggestions on how to use the application? Is it something you would use? Leave a comment.

I love promoting awesome people, great causes, events, and organizations/businesses that are doing interesting things. My favorite tech tool to help me do this is the Apple iPhone 3Gs.

There’s a reason the iPhone 3Gs is such a hot seller, it is a mobile promotion machine. I use it to check email on the road or at home when away from my laptop. I use it to take pictures that I post to my Twitter and Facebook status feeds and to various blogs. The built in video allows me to post to my YouTube Channel, post via email to my Posterous account, send short videos via 12seconds.tv, and to live stream using Qik.com and UStream. With this single tool, I can immediately share what’s going on with my life or at an event.

Here’s an example of how I used my iPhone for shameless self-promotion. A couple of months back, I noticed Nancy Rodriguez’s Twitter update where she mentioned that she and the crew from Q1047, the local Hip-Hop and R&B station, where going to be live broadcasting from a nearby McDonald’s. It was around 7am so I grabbed a fast shower then zoomed over to McDees. I had chatted with Nancy before via Twitter so it was great meeting her and the rest of the Rico and Mambo show. I took a couple of photos of them in action, posted the pictures to Twitpic and Twitter, spoke to Nancy, then headed back to go home.

Now, I’ve been listening to Q1047 since I moved to Ventura County and it’s my favorite station. So I was glad to post pictures and tweet about them on Twitter. But as I headed back to the car I realized that I could have plugged my new online blogging course. So I decided to grow a sack and went back to ask Nancy to send a shoutout to my BuildYourFanBase.com readers and she kindly did so.

Fifteen minutes after I left the live broadcast, I had uploaded the video shoutout to YouTube and had already tweeted out a link to my blog post on the event. Minutes later Nancy retweeted the link and gave my blog and new blog class an on-air shoutout.

Now that’s promotion at the speed of light!

Do you have any other mobile promotion tech tools that you swear by?

The Apple iPad will start shipping in about 3 months and the tech industry is buzzing. Many people were disappointed after the Steve Jobs presentation because they expected a new wizbang technology that just didn’t seem to be there. Others have been cautiously expectant.

I think the iPad will be very successful and Apple will ship 8 million units in 2010 for the following reasons:

1. The iPad will jump all over the Kindle market and greatly expand the mobile reader market
2. The iPad will open up new types of mobile interactive media. It will finally create the first “electronic book” that we have been expecting for years
3. We’re going to see a lot of activity from the developer community in the form of expanded iPhone apps and new iPad applications. People are already coming up with ideas for the next great games.

So there you have it, my prediction for the future of the iPad. In case you’re wondering, I did have a prediction on the iPhone and I was largely wrong. The biggest thing I learned from the iPhone launch was that Apple addresses weakness very quickly.

How do you think the Apple iPad will fare? Will it be wildly successful like the iPhone or fizzle like a Mac Book Air that slides into the envelope of oblivion? Once you blog your prediction, leave a comment here so we can follow up in a few months. Or, if you’re not blogging yet, leave a comment with your prediction and key reason(s).

Are you in?

Photo credit: Apple Computer