Thursday, September 18, 2008

iPhone - layers of integrated functionality

It's easy to make a list of what my iPhone can't do. No cut, copy paste -- which I miss all the time. No cross-application search (I can imagine why not, but I sure miss it). No tethering - yet. No standard sync infrastructure, so every vendor has to roll their own.

I'll omit "no tasks, no notes sync" because I love Appigo's solutions and they wouldn't exist if Apple had done these things.

What gets missed is how much deep and integrated functionality there is ...
Gordon's Tech: iPhone notes you won't read elsewhere

... The silver on/off button has context dependent behavior. In standard mode it locks the phone and turns off the display. When a call comes in one push silences the ring, two sends it directly to voice mail. When you're on a call, one push locks the phone, preventing errant touches from messing up your call. (I lost a lot of calls until I learned this.)

... When you search for a business on the Map and select a pin, you get a pop-up with an arrow. Touch the arrow to see the contact. What's not obvious at that point is that if you scroll down, you can add this to your address book (you cannot, however, specify to which group). I do this all the time. The form of contact that's created is very complete, including a map link.
And, of course, there's the App Store, which gets more amazing every day.

It's the deep integration though that really impresses me. Very elegant, very, I must admit, Apple.

Update: Oops. Looks like a minor iPhone glitch led me to think pushing the wake/sleep button when on a call would lock the screen. In truth it's supposed to disconnect the call. I do wish there was a way to lock the screen during calls. I switch to another app to avoid pressing keys that will interrupt the call.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Clarifi iPhone case - must buy now ... cannot resist ...

This is just painfully brilliant ...
Griffin Technology: Clarifi

... Slide the Clarifi lens into place over the built-in lens of your iPhone.... ... With Clarifi's lens, your iPhone can image an entire business card with astounding clarity.... you can move in to 4 inches for crisp detail and great pictures.

And, of course, Clarifi is also a super-protective case, constructed of durable polycarbonate, with cutaways for access to power switch, headphone jack, volume controls, and dock connector. For use with Apple Universal Dock wells, Clarifi features Griffin's trademark EasyDock™ design: the bottom third of the case slides down and off to fit in standard dock wells.

I cannot resist. It's not on sale yet, but now I'm glad I haven't found a case I really like.

Evernote will do offline OCR of scanned and uploaded images. I assume they do something special for business cards especially if you pay for their enhanced service. I assume an OCR app for the iPhone is on the way ...

The Devil's Due: Qwest has been good

I've had a few nasty things to say about Sprint and AT&T.

So I was surprised when I recently realized that I've gotten quite good service from Qwest. It's been a year since I switched ISPs ...
Gordon's Tech: I switch to Qwest DSL Platinum

... The tech person was, again, very good. She promptly gave me my Qwest un/pw and, for what it's worth, my MSN un/pw (guess I need a mail forwarder there [1]).

So far it's been fine. I'll update with this post as I learn how well it works, and, most of all, learn how much it will really cost....
My DSL works, speed seems adequate, I pay my bills. Qwest doesn't even spy on me. They don't even spam me.

Weird.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Simple iPhone web app directory

iPhone Web Apps. A very simple list that renders well on the iPhone, from pure-mac.com. I had no idea Amazon had a web app interface.

Air Sharing: turn your iPhone into a file and web server

I have my copy:
Avatron Software: "Air Sharing's regular price is US$6.99. But don't miss this special introductory offer: For the first two weeks, Avatron Software will be giving Air Sharing away for FREE!"
So now my iPhone is a file server and and a web server. If you knew my IP address I suppose I could run my old web site off it.

Comes with a file viewer which did a fine job rendering a word doc.

This is a bit insane. Today I bought an HP41C emulator, got Air Sharing for free, and got a free upgrade to Apple's Remote app.

Ever since I found a fix for the "unknown error" on update bug the App Store has been my candy store. I'm already forgetting the suffering of switching from Palm to the iPhone...

The iPhone HP 41C emulator (i41CX) - because sometimes madness must be honored

An obsessed madman has created a full emulation of a legendary scientific calculator ...
i41CX

Advanced programmable and expandable RPN scientific calculator with virtual thermal printer/plotter suitable for a wide variety of scientific, engineering, mathematical, financial, and academic applications.

  • RPN logic with 4 element stack
  • Powerful rich set of numeric and mathematical functions
  • Time, calendar, alarm, and stopwatch functions
  • 12 character display with alphanumeric capability
  • User definable keyboard with support for overlays
  • Expandability: four module ports provide access to additional functions (e.g. matrix operations, programmer functions, equation solvers, etc.) beyond the standard built-in functions
  • Ability to download module files from the internet
  • Program features: automatic line numbering, labels, branching, subroutines, interactive alphanumeric input/output, loop operations, indirect addressing, flag operations, and synthetic operations...
Note the word "HP" does not appear anywhere on this page or on the screens. It's just an "scientific calculator". Nudge-nudge.

It cost me $8 to buy this. I might use the timer, and I might use the calculator every few weeks.

I bought it because sometimes glorious madness must be honored.

Update 12/23/09: There's a comprehensive (of course) FAQ on the AL Software site and a mini-manual. The original HP 41C manual is probably a bit hard to come buy, but, inevitably, another wonderfully insane geek has an online version and the i41CX manual points to PDF scans of the original manuals (252 pages!). Yes, and there's anHP41.org domain.

The only mystery remaining is who wrote this incredible application. The answer can be found on the HP-41 archive website emulation page. (Or you could just look at the author credits on the "mini manual").

I must add that I've recently scanned the "mini-manual" and "staggering" comes to mind. For example:
... Need to solve first- or second-order differential equations? Need to perform complex number operations and functions? Need to perform vector operations? Coordinate transformations? Number conversions and Boolean logic? Curve fitting? Solve time value of money problems? These are essentially the problems for which the HP-15C and HP-16C were developed. The Advantage Pac provides these capabilities to the HP-41CX. Thus, by loading the Advantage Pac and creating the appropriate key assignments, you can turn the i41CX+ into a virtual HP-15C or HP-16C!...
Oookaay. And let's not mention the GPS tools.

Wow, Safari for Windows is bad ..

In the course of closing out the last remaining RSS reader options for an unusual setting, I put Safari for Windows through some simple tests as an RSS reader.

Wow, it's bad.

No, the RSS stuff is pretty good. Much better than Firefox 3, and probably comparable to IE 7.

Problem is, the was very flaky and slow to process the Sharepoint and Community Server feeds I gave it. If it clicked too many times during operations on the bookmarks and feeds it would crash.

I can see why Safari gets so little attention on XP. On OS X it's a reasonably competitive browser (I prefer Firefox because Google builds for FF), but on XP it's kind of bad.

Really, Apple should kill Safari on XP and focus on getting Webkit based Chrome working with Apple products.