So I have this running discussion with many of my geek friends about Android phones versus iPhones. My favorite comments that I hear are “It’s just like an iPhone” or “It works like an iPhone”. Hmmmm, why not just get an iPhone?
Many folks are caught up in Apple or Steve Jobs hatred and it is blinding them to some really nice, well engineered devices. I’m not a Steve Jobs fanboy by any stretch of the imagination, but you cannot argue with success. I am also impressed with the simplicity of both the hardware and software design with many of the Apple products; it’s good that companies are learning from them.
I also believe that Android is suffering a bit from buyer fatigue. It seems that there is a new model every week with a different power adapter and hard to find accessories. I never have this problem with iPhones; matter of fact, my power adapter from my first iPhone still works on my current model.
Would I buy an Android phone? If my carrier didn’t have an iPhone, I would certainly consider the Motorola or Samsung line of Android phones if I wanted a quality product. Of course I would need to wait on my carrier for any software updates and I have heard some bad stories about Verizon. Never have that problem with my iPhone, the updates come direct from Apple.
Later,
matt
So the other day I was reading the Evernote blog and saw this really cool program called Nozbe which is a web based application that is a full blown implementation of GTD. One of the best I’ve ever seen so I signed up for the trial account. Since it is a freemium service, you need to go to a paid account to unlock additional features. I always look at these web based companies before I give them my money and found that Nozbe is based in Poland. I know that Poland is not normally a country that is full of hackers, but I worry about giving my financial info to a company that far away. So I canceled my account and moved on.
- Backup – If the service does not have a method for you to back up your information locally on your computer, don’t use it.
- Business Model – If it is free, how are they going to stay in business? I try to use Freemium based services, at least they have an income.
- Location – Try to find services in the US or in the country where you live. If things get really bad you may have some recourse.
I came across this the other day when I was doing my daily reading of blogs. This is a great article on how to protect yourself if you use Google services:
http://www.labnol.org/internet/gmail-and-google-apps-hacked/11799/
Several years ago a friend of mine introduced me to the “The Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy” by Douglas Adams. I started reading the book on business trips and frequently remember having several people staring at me in airports as I was laughing hysterically.
I read all four books in the trilogy (Douglas used to joke about this); “The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe”, “Life, The Universe And Everything”, and “So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish”. I couldn’t put them down.
Douglas left the earth early in May of 2001, he was 49. A couple of years before that, he wrote a marvelous essay on the subject “How to Stop Worrying and Learn to Love the Internet“. This essay is 10 years old and still makes sense today. Take some time and read it, but also go out and get yourself a copy of the The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Later,
matt
I spent a good part of the day a couple of weeks ago at a local event where various companies such as Cisco, Intel, Microsoft, etc. talk about what they are up to and what they will be releasing in the next few months. It doesn’t seem that there is any next big thing on the horizon that we can get excited about. Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of cool little things, but no OMG moments.
What is a big thing? I remember back to windows 1.0 (I AM the old geek) and how that was an OMG moment. I even remember the first Mac and how that was an OMG moment. Windows 95 had that feeling after running 3.1 all of those years. And how about Cello after all of the time spent in gopher?
We really don’t have any next big technology market turning events on the horizon. I don’t think it is the economy, but everyone likes to blame anything negative on it’s state.
later,
matt
There are many options to adding an iPod to a mini. The most expensive way is to install the iPod kit from mini for several hundred dollars. That wasn’t an option for me.
The mini car stereo has an aux input which allows for direct connection of the iPod to the car . I could have gone simple with just a male to male cable but that wouldn’t have charged the iPod as well.
My first attempt was with the Griffin Tuneflex Aux
So a few weeks ago I bought a Monster iCarCharger 1000 for iPod and iPhone
Anyway, I’ll let you know how this turns out. If you have any suggestions for me, please let me know.
Thanks,
matt
I’ve been an avid iphone user for over a year now and always have 10 pages of apps on my phone. I find that unless you download and try them, you have a hard time finding the really good ones. Here are a few of my often used favorites:
This is an incredible application. I was doing some shopping last weekend at Cabelas and ran across a lock you could use to secure the tailgate on a pickup. I took a photo of the lock in the Amazon app and in about 5 minutes, a person at Amazon looked it up and presented it in the app with pricing (10 dollars cheaper). If I so desired I could have clicked on the item and ordered it. This is wild; expect merchants to start banning smartphones in their stores very soon. By the way, it’s free.
Where would I be without Evernote? I have mentioned this before here on my blog, but Evernote is one of the very best note taking applications ever written. One of the coolest things it does is support multiple platforms; you can write a note on your iphone and then modify it on your Mac or PC in a native client or even on your Linux box using the web interface. Absolutely amazing and it’s free.
Okay, we all have to have guitly pleasures and Facebook is mine. I’ve connected with several old high school friends and keep in touch with my current friends vis this application. The iphone version is very well done and allows mobile uploads of pictures you may take with the iphone camera and it’s free.
If you use Twitter, this is becoming the standard for iphone Twitter apps. It has every feature you may need including automating the mobile picture upload process. It is $2.99.
Maps (Google Maps)
I know that this is a native iphone app, but it is still one of my absolute favorites. And they have enhanced it on the 3GS phone with compass integration so you can turn your phone and the maps will orient correctly based on your position. Very cool.
Accuweather (webapp)
The iphone has spawned a whole new class of web based applications that are build to function and look good on the iphone. One of my favorite ones is Accuweather. It has a really nice interface for radar and long range forecasts.
Craigslist has built a klunky yet usable iphone application for searching their site. It has few issues, but all in all it makes the process fairly painless. It is free.
This app was one of the first real time sports score reporting applications for the iphone and I am still using it today. It provides updates for all major sports including pro and college. It is free.
This has been a guitar playing lifesaver for me. It has about every chord you can physically play on the guitar listed with easy lookup. I’ve tried a bunch of these iphone apps and this is my favorite. It is $1.99 and is well worth it.
Now if you are not a Mac user you may not be excited about this application but if you are, it is one of the very best password vault applications I have ever used. It does a great job of syncing your passwords between your mac and iphone as well as even completing web forms on the iphone with the passwords. It is $4.99 on the iphone, and $39.95 on the mac.
Later,
matt
Very rarely do I run across some new technology that I can recommend to my friends without any worries and I know it will make them happy.
That is the experience I have had with Eye-Fi. My son was getting married a couple of months ago and I needed a new SD memory card for my camera. I’ve heard about the Eye-Fi card and I really didn’t believe it could do what it’s advertising promised, but I thought now would be a good time to try. It ended up being absolutely amazing!
This card actually uses your or any other configured wifi network to upload the pictures stored on it to your favorite web picture site (Fotki, Shutterfly, dotPhoto, webshots, phanfare, Picasa Web albums, flickr, TypePad, Wal-Mart, snapfish, VOX, smugmug, facebook, photobucket, Kodak Gallery, and Sharpcast). It can also use it’s built-in wireless to use a wireless network to upload to your laptop or PC if you so desire.
A funny experience I had the first time I used the card happened on my son’s wedding day. The girls were getting their hair done upstairs at my house and I thought it would be cool to get pictures. I gave my wife my camera with the Eye-Fi card installed and off she went. I was sitting in the den on my laptop watching the pictures magically appear on my Picasa site. It blew me away.
So if you have a digital camera that uses an SD card; run, don’t walk and go get one of these cards. You can find the one I bought on Amazon Eye-Fi Share Wi-Fi Wireless 2 GB SD Flash Memory Card EYE-FI-2GB
Later,
matt
