Tag Archives: iPhone

Printing from the iPhone and iPad

Posted on by
2

photo 1

I have waited for this for a while and didn’t think to check the app store for this little app.  No, I am not an apple Airprint guy so I don’t have the native print capability in my iDevices. I have an HP All-in-One printer I bought several years ago. So all of you HP fans who are not aware of this cool application you should think about getting it.  I have already used it a few times for some web printing and got the application installed on my iPhone and iPad. You can connect directly to a Wifi printer or the printer just needs to be on the network your device is attached to.

Just search for “HP ePrint” in the App Store, it’s free!

photo 2

Killer App for iPhone: Group Text!

Posted on by
1

I am finding more and more I have to use group texting from my iPhone. I have a group of friends, a softball team to coach and a pretty big family. All of these “lists” have to be created manually and since many of my recipients phones don’t support group messaging the “list” gets lost and I have to recreate it. The iPhone also does not let you add people to the message once the original message is sent. I really think this should just be a feature on the iPhone, maybe it will some day.

On to my point, the application “Group Text” is a killer application for me now. It is literally saving me time on a daily basis. I can manage multiple lists, add, delete, etc and even do some things I have not ventured into yet like inserts. You can check out their site to get a list of all the features included.

So why did pick this application over the dozens of other group text applications? Well, it had the most ratings along with the highest ratings. I read a lot of the reviews and I was sold within minutes. Especially after reading the many reviews on the other applications.

 

 

FourSquare check-ins versus native applications

Posted on by
2

I have been playing with FourSquare for about four weeks now as many of my friends have probably seen the check-ins on Facebook and Twitter. I have even gone to the extent to checking out the API behind the scenes and it looks very clean and easy. The basis of the API is REST (REpresentational State Transfer). So integrating other commerce based products, tools, and sites should be a snap.

Not many people in my area are using FourSquare but on a positive note there seem to be more and more people using it even in the past month. I am already a mayor in two places; not sure what that buys me but it felt good.

I used FourSquare to check into a store called Justified; my wife and I were shopping for a birthday present. There were signs all over the store for 40% off. When I checked into FourSquare I received a coupon code “500″ and received an additional 40% off! I was thinking, there is no way its 40% off then another 40% off, but that is exactly how it rang up at the register after presenting the coupon from my iPhone. We saved tons of money that day. So much in fact, we got the girl double the amount of gifts because we felt bad it was so inexpensive – she really made out…

Now, on to my point. I really like the concept of check-ins using an application like this. It allows me to use the application to find many kinds of places and see what those places have for specials. For instance, I might be at a Best Buy with a Staples next door, I see on FourSquare that Staples has a coupon or a special by seeing the special indicator in the “Stores nearby”. This immediately lets me know what stores in my physical area have specials and which stores do not. In my mind, this is a huge benefit over stores with specific applications on my iPhone. Stores with their own applications make me go into their application, check-in, and look for specials – once again, very different than seeing a list of stores with specials. So it makes me ask, why go through the trouble of having a native iPhone(mobile) application when services like “check-in” and “coupons” are available on products like GoWalla, FourSquare, Facebook, etc? With HTML 5 you could get a lot accomplished on these devices without having a special native application for your store. Leave check-ins to applications that offer a community, badges, rewards, and a social aspect to the check-in action.

 

Do you use Audible.com?

Posted on by
7

I was checking out the Audible.com site and I think the concept is very cool but I would like to get others opinions on this.  I can easily see myself using my iPhone for audio books when I run or am working out.  I like music but I also like listening to news or sports and was thinking I might enjoy listening to a book. The price looks pretty good, for $150 it looks like you get 12 books.

I wanted to see if anyone else has any experience with this product or use it with their iPhone or MP3 player.

Netbooks and "pads" are the new Laptop

Posted on by
3

CDROM – what is that?

That is what the next generation will say in a few years.  There won’t be movie CD’s, Blue Ray will be dead, everything will be “in the cloud”.  The new Apple Store is just another step in this direction.  Companies like NetFlix will go through the roof in stock price because that is all there will be. My kids don’t even ask for CD’s, they want money to buy iTunes cards.  I have already found myself using the “Watch Now” feature on Netflix more than my regular DVD queue.  It’s like I am too lazy to even mail the CD back and forth!  Soon I will be able to buy, watch, etc all from my TV, XBox or “netbook”.  My step daughter has a new netbook, that she got for Christmas and I think its awesome.  Netbooks and “pads” are clearly the future of desktop computing.

So once again, focus your applications for pads and web based technologies!  There are some subtle things you can do to make sure your web apps work great on these new devices.

YouTube, VideoFest, the iPhone and a treadmill

Posted on by
2

I have to say I love VideoFest!  Since its launch I have actually started doing something that seems to be a no-brainer but I had not done before.  That is, watching YouTube videos on my iPhone while on the treadmill!  Yep, I love it.  I have now done it for almost two weeks and I have watched dozens of videos at this point and have learned a lot.

I have also found that I really like the “raw video” – ie. videos created by normal people describing tips, tricks, or something about a product.  Most seem like they are roughly scripted but for the most part you are hearing it from their heart and their experience.

So if you have an iPod and a treadmill why not stay fit and learn at the same time!

IPhone and "No SIM Card Installed" message

Posted on by
3

I normally do not write on the weekends and even more so I usually schedule my posts from the night before or even several days in advance.  These circumstance however, are different.  I accidentally dropped my iPhone and it immediately display “No Service” and a pop-up message “No SIM card installed’.  I restarted the device, nothing changed.  I started scouring the internet and it looks like this is a common problem.

The problem was the SIM card was not “in” all of the way – apparently.  From many posts on the internet this seems to be a common problem but in all cases the people visually saw the SIM card sticking out.  Well, guess what?  Mine looked fine!  Which make my solution even more strange.  I simply pressed on the SIM card and it came alive.  The card was not sticking out and it didn’t even appear to move but it worked.

strange…

Tungle.me: The social calendar that does it all!

Posted on by
1

I installed Tungle a couple of days ago and my first impressions of the site, WordPress plugin, the Notes plugin, and even the iPhone application (essentially all of the places I use calendar) is the stuff just works!  Ok, so saying it “does it all” may be a bit misleading but in my mind with the depth of function, calendars and devices supported its pretty impressive for a young product.

The application is so easy to use on all of the devices that I have to give the Tungle team kudos for making what I consider “brilliant software”. The site allows you to sync with many different calendars, check out the screen shot with all of the various options available:

Lastly, here is a cool widget you can use on your site to have your readers schedule meetings with you. So now, business partners and customers can use my Tungle.me profile to see when I can have a meeting with them.

POLL: Mobile development, native or HTML 5 based?

Posted on by
1

A timely post on InfoWorld made me think of a poll that would be interesting to see how the general community feels on the subject.  I do have my own opinions however; after playing with the Android SDK and creating some basic applications for the device.  In short, until we get JavaScript libraries like jQTouch for all major frameworks like Dojo and JQuery or HTML supports such API’s it will be hard to completely develop with HTML 5 and JavaScript alone.  However, I do think HTML 5 + JavaScript should be the right answer in the long run but today I would have to go with option 3 – both Native and HTML 5 for the development choice. The good news is most of the development for platforms like Android use Eclipse for both web and native so you can essentially learn and develop everything for free!

What do you think?

[poll id="12"]

iPhone enabled sites are perfect for Lotus Notes sidebar!

Posted on by
Reply

I had originally put this on LinkedIn and Twitter last Wednesday but the more I thought about it the more I think it should be persisted on my site. Matt Newman wrote a very nice post about this and I need to just pass it on.  The concept is pretty darn simple and the fact that the Notes side bar is very popular it is also almost the perfect size for iPhone like applications.

Click for original article