thomascwaters.com

Wanted to publish a list of the 9 iPhone apps I found myself using through this past year (in no particular order):

Awesome apps:

• Kindle- This has become one of my all time favorite apps. Easiest way to read a book on the bus ride to or from work, or after crawling into bed at the day’s end. At first, I thought it would suck, since the screen isn’t that large, but actually the “page” size works out great, and even though you are turning the page more often, I don’t really notice that. Now, I find myself almost irritated if a book I want isn’t available for the Kindle. I especially like the ability to add notes and highlight.
• WordPress2- I really like this app, although my usage goes up and down. I usually blog at home in the mornings, before I leave for work. So, I have started to use this app to read back over what I’ve written, and do last editing/refining. Also use it to approve comments held for moderation. I’ve also found it an easy way to jot a few sentences down and start a post that I finish later after I’m at the computer.
• Public Radio- I use this app every day, and listen to NPR on the way home from work, but I have to say, this app drives me nuts. The station often cuts in and out, and that is really irritating.  I also find it slow to load and the little “play” button at the far left bottom is too close to other stuff, and I often end up leaving my station and am off waiting for something unwanted to load, and then have to make my way back to my station. I’ll keep using this until I find another Public Radio station app that I like better, but then, it will be so long! Still, I do use it everyday.
• Google- This is another app, I use everyday, but unlike Public Radio, I love this one! I use it mostly to read Google Reader, but also use it to get into Google Docs, and I’ll be really happy if they add Google Wave.  If there is anything missing, it would be the ability to send something to my blog, like the “Press This” tool for WordPress. When I’m using a browser, I will often use that to send a link over to my blog, save it as a draft, and then write about it later. Without this ability, I find myself using the “share” feature more than I would otherwise, or just adding a star, so I can easily come back later for it, once I’m at the desktop browser. But too often, I never get back to writing about it. Maybe that’s fine- a level of needed editing. I have a social media buddy who says I post 10 times a day!  If I cut that down to 3 or 4, it wouldn’t be so bad…
• iRewardCards- This is another app, I just absolutely love. It holds all of my “reward” cards and so I’m never without them when I go to a store. As an additional perk, store clerks always seem to find it so cool, and that makes me feel like I’m cool. If there is any thing not cool about this app, it is that too often, the bar code won’t scan, and the clerk has to type in the number, which isn’t too bad, but could be easier. I’m not sure if it is just the type of scanners used, or if it is because I have a protective cover over the iPhone.
• Grindr- I hesitated putting this one on my list, but it actually has been a really handy app. Grindr is a social media app for gay guys. Sometimes understood as a hook up app, that hasn’t been my experience at all. Possibly because I’m an old guy (please say, no you aren’t!!!) but for me, it has worked like any other social media app as a way to meet friends, and stay in touch. It is sort of like a chat client in this regard. I’ve meet some cool guys this way, all totally platonic.I used to use the Gay.com chat for this type of socializing, but since it is browser-only, it isn’t a good option for an iPhone. Grindr, is however, a great choice.
• Bump- This is a very cool app, that I’m glad to say exists for Android and possibly other phones too. It is an easy way to share your contact info withg another Bump user, and that was where I first learned about it. But my partner, who has a Android Hero, use it to pass a variety of files back and forth. Very useful.
• Trektivity- Haven’t used this app too much yet, but got it as a replacement for iTrail (see below.) My partner and I are training for a week-long bike trip from Pittsburgh to DC next summer, and so every time we are out riding, I capture info using this app. I really liked iTrail, but it used up all the battery time too quickly, so for a longer ride it was no use at all. Trektivity seems to handle the power much better, but in all honestly haven’t used it enough to be really sure how much better. Ask me in May or June, and I’ll let you know.
• EchofonPro- This is my Twitter app, and so I am using it all of the time!

The above list are all apps that I downloaded, but there are a handful of apps that came on the phone that I couldn’t live without. I probably use my iPhone as a phone, far less than any of these other apps. Here are my top apps(in no particular order):

Built in essentials:

• Messages- I’ve always been fond of iChat on the computer, and so this app comes close and I use it all the time. Why clutter up an email inbox when you can text instead?
• Mail- That said, I use the email app all of the time too. Much like the Mail app on the desktop, it can have multiple email addresses, in it, and that works out great.
• Calendar- This too is a great app, and close to iCal. I use it for a work calendar (which is from an Exchange server) and my personal calendars that were created in iCal.
• Camera- This is an app, I am using more and more , and really love the ability get a quick picture. As an artist, I am starting to play with it, and see how to get interesting shots that grow out of the idiosyncrasies of the camera, as opposed to seeing them as limitations. I always loved plastic camera photos- this is a digital equivalent in many regards.
• Maps- This is one I never really though tI would use, but find I’m in it more and more. While I have a GPS in the car, I find it a pain in the ass to set up, especially if I’m just doing a quick 10 minute trip. It is easier to use this app, and it doesn’t slow me down. I have an iPhone 3G, and not a 3GS, so I’d expect I’d love this even more if that was the case. New iPhone for me? Maybe next summer.
• iPod- This is clearly the single most used app on my phone. I use it to listen/watch to a number of podcasts every single day, as well as to listen to music.

Lastly, here is a list of apps that at one time were of useful to me, or I thought could be, but for a variety of reasons, never made it work out for me. I’m not ready to delete them off my phone, but I’m disappointed with their use (in no particular order):

Didn’t Make it in 2009:

• ReQall- I believe I wrote about this a year ago, and I found it a useful app to make a voice memo and have it show up in my inbox as text. Conceptually, it seems so cool, especially since I’m a lousy typist, on the iPhone or a keyboard. but it didn’t work out that well for me. I think as soon as I start the record, I think too much about what I am going to record, instead of just saying it. The final text requires so much editing, I can do better typing it from the start. I’d like to give it another try, but I think too, it is now a pay service?
• iWant/Nearby/ AroundMe- These are three apps that do similar stuff. I used them (in the order listed) when I was looking for something, and found them OK, until I took 2 trips- to NYC and to San Fran cisco. I was in SF, looking for someplace to eat, and the apps couldn’t find much, but there was food all around!  Got me wondering how different places get “listed” with different apps, and that left me wondering if I’ll find what I need when I need it?
• Facebook- This app is OK, but on my phone seems to be an orphan. If I get an email that someone has written on my wall, and I click on it, it opens a web browser, and not the Facebook app. Part of the problem for me, is I’m just on Facebook less than I used to be. I use Twitter more than I use Facebook.
• Noble Paths- I love the idea of this app, but I’m left even after reading all of the “about” section, not really sure what to do to get the most out of it. I have no clue what the target score is all about. Seems so unbuddha-like to keep score? Maybe I’m not a good enough Buddhist? When
• I downloaded this, I expected it to be a part of my daily practice, but it hasn’t turned out that way at all.
• iNeedStuff- This is another app, that I love the idea of, but using it when making a shopping list is clunky, and then I forget to use it in the store. Often, I’ll have “Vegetables” on my shopping list, instead of specific veggies. Seems to be too much typing just to get a list together, and the list is too “item” specific.
• 1Password- Another app, that I love the idea of it, but seems too complicated to use. Syncing it with the computer is a problem. Had it working, then that broke and haven’t been able to set it up again. Unlike on the desktop, this app seems totally separate from the browser, so it is useless to store web site usernames and passwords?
• Loopt Mix- This is a social media app, that I was trying to use before Grindr, but there is rarely ever anyone on-line when I am, and the guys who have profiles seem to be under 27 years old. I like that you can have more than 1 picture, but if no one is ever on, how useful is it?
• iTrail- See above- this is a very cool app, if it didn’t drain my battery so badly so quickly. Lots of great features.
• The Carrot- As I’m writing this, seems like it is all the apps I’ve paid for, I stop using. LOL. The Carrot is one of these $$ apps too.  I got it to track my peak flow numbers (I have asthma) but then, at the doctors office, I couldn’t use it to show her my readings. Found out I had to view all the data on my computer. That seemed odd, that I could enter, but not track right in the app. This app, allows you to track all sorts of stuff, and that is cool, but I find I just don’t use it.
• iNap- This is a really cool app, and I’ve written about it before. But I no longer seem to use it. It only works in conjunction with the iPod app, so I can’t use it while I’m using the Public radio app. I’ve also found that the alarm it sounds isn’t louder than whatever music is playing, or loud enough that it doesn’t wake me.

I’m a Mac guy through and through, and so when a Kindle iPhone app was announced, I thought I might be ready to look at digital books, but I wasn’t in the need of a book. But the other night, I saw a preview for the next Harry Potter film, and thought it was time to re-read the book before the film is released. So, how about Harry Potter? Might be a good choice as my first Kindle book. Not so fast!

I got onto Amazon.com, created and account and then eagerly went to get the book, but it isn’t available as a Kindle edition. So, it’s a no go!

I like books. I like the feel of paper in my hands, and I like owning books, yet there is plenty of reasons to think about minimizing paper books and increasing digital books. I can’t ever imagine there being no paper books, but I can see a greatly reduced paper library.

I did see a book that caught my interest. A book about Harry Potter and Christian meaning. but it will have to take a number. I’m still reading “Year of Living Biblically” which is a really good read, and have another book in the queue that my partner gave me last month. so, my foray into Kindle will not start yet.

Landscape Mode

One of the common complaints against the iPhone has been the lack of a horizontal keyboard. Apps have come out that offer it and I believe that the v3.0 software brings this feature to the native mail app. But it is already in the latest Wordpress app.
I think I’ve become fairly fast with typing with my index finger, hut horozontal typing allows someone to use both thumbs and type even faster.
Maybe this was already in the older version of the app and I didn’t know it? But I discovered it tonight by accident. So, how well does it work? I immediately noticed I was typing faster even thought I am not used to using both thumbs. This is good. However, the keyboard takes up a larger percentage if the screen and that will take some time to geyvised to.
There are two other big changes in the app that I immediately appreciated. You can now do pages and comments as well as posts.

Easy Ways to Gather Information: Google Alerts

Wanted to spend a few minutes describing my experience with using Google Alerts as a part of my blogging work flow. sounds serious doesn’t it? Blogging work flow. When I started this WordPress blog, I was interested in building a readership. It was  (and still is) important to me that people come to my blog, read it, and get something from it. In my ideal world, readers would leave comments, and dialogue would ensue. My level of comments are still low, but readership has been increasing at a nice pace.

Early on, I was looking for ways to gather source material to write about. I was interested to see what else was being said about various topics across the blogosphere, as a way to find material to respond to in my posts as well as to help me have more than a single person’s view of a topic. I found Google Alerts. This enabled me to set up key word searched and receive regular reports about my interests. Since I was writing a lot about Marriage Equality after the passage of Prop 8 in California, I added an alert for “Marriage Equality” so that once a day, I get an email listing a variety of web pages and blog entries which have discussed Marriage Equality. The email contains, not only a link to the source, but it identifies the source, the author, about a sentence of text,  and sometimes a picture. My work flow has been to take that email, and each day, read through it, follow those links that look of interest, and then write about some of them. I started with 3 alerts- 2 produce a daily email, and 1 sends me an alert whenever that keyword appears. This has worked out pretty well over time, but I needed something more.

I found that my keywords were often, not providing me with the full story. For example, using the term Marriage Equality tends to find only stores and blog entries which are supportive of Marriage Equality. but what about what the opponents are saying? They don’t tend to characterize the issue as Marriage Equality, so more keywords were needed. In hind sight, this is all pretty basic stuff if you do a lot of research, but this was my progression. I wanted one other addition too.

I wanted to see about eliminating one piece in the work flow- the email, to simplify the process. Anything that I can do to improve my productivity since this is not my full time job, I need to use my time and resources wisely. so, I thought it would be so cool if I could get my alerts via RSS instead of email. Of course, Google Alerts allows this, but it took asking on twitter, and replies from two folks for me to figure that out. I had looked at the UI for alerts, and how I missed it is beyond me, the-snake-would-have-bit-me kind of thing. so I added a new alert, and set it to RSS, to see if that met my needs better.

Now of the 2 replies I got on Twitter, one suggested it was very good, and the other suggested it wasn’t as good as email.  ”Good” is a subjective  thing, and I didn’t ask for greater articulation. What may seem good to one person, may seem not as good to another. To me, “good” would have to do with the thoroughness of the results. and it seemed to me that the found results ought to be the same, if it comes via email or RSS.

Alerts as RSS automatically get added to Google Reader. This was both good and bad for my use. How about that? So, with the email, I would:

• open the email
• scan email, and follow links of interest
• on an interesting web page that I wanted to blog about, open another tab, and begin to add a blog entry.
• After some writing, return to the email.
• If, of no interest, go back to the email.
• At the end of the email, save email to an archive folder.
• Finish anything started on the blog.

One thing that didn’t work as well for me, was that I tend to read the email on the bus on the way home from work, on my iPhone. There is no easy way to do the above steps completely. so I would end up reading the email on the bus, and then again opening it at home. Just ignoring the email on the bus however, doesn’t work for me. I’m interested in seeing what is there.

The RSS approach works really well for this. I use the Google Mobile app for Google Reader. I can read the feed on the bus and “star” anything that looks good. Then at home, I simply look at the starred item list and go from there for the writing part. This cuts the work flow to about 5 as opposed to 8 steps.

There is one downside to the RSS feed approach for me. I have so many feeds from blogs I like in my reader that I often can get lost in reading them, and do not focus on my alerts feed. small issue- a change in my discipline to read that feed first would solve that issue.

So, now I have alerts I read and use 2 different ways, and I am planning to keep it that way  for a while. I like that I can use a smart mailbox (Apple Mail) to gather the alerts into a “folder” as opposed to my Google Reader feeds being in alpha order. And I use different alerts someone differently. Some, I see more as inspiration for writing ideas, and others as direct source material. I can “share” items in Google Reader, which is a way to put something out there, without necessarily blogging about it. so I plan to keep playing around with this as I find the way to use these to my best advantage.

How do you collect content? How do you use Google Alerts- let me now, leave a comment.

My friend Art has ben very interested in what is going on surrounding 3G and the iPhone, so I thought I would post this link:

Apple Issues Update Signaling iPhone Compatibility With AT&T’s MicroCell – Mac Rumors.

Aside from the rating thing, and the audiobook thing, this guy is speaking my mind!  But I’d add to his list:

• I’d like the ability to READ email in lanscape view, even if I can’t compose in landscape view.
• Wouldn’t it be cool, if when using the web, the iPhone could determine the width of the text and zoom in or out so that by default a line of text is the width of the screen? Then, you could pinch or spread to see more or less, but it would gve you a starting point.

I love my iPhone, but I could love it more.

Wanted: The Demise of Several iPhone Irritations – The Mac Observer.

iRewardCard for iPhone

Time again for another iPhone app review!  I tried the lite/ free version of this app first and after I decided I liked it, went ahead and bought this app and I’m very pleased with it.  It works for me on several levels:

1) It empties my pockets.  No more the need to carry around a pocket full of plastic reward cards! Sure, you can usually ask the clerk to look up your number, but that slows everything down and is rude to the people behind you.  And for some cards, it is hard.  Like-  my partner and I are never sure- was the pet shop card on his phone number or mine…

2) It makes me look cool! LOL.  At every store where I have held my iPhone to the clerk with a bar code on it, I get the most amazing responses!  People are really interested in it, and the iPhone becomes the center of attention.

3) It simplifies my life.  This is what I think technology ought to do.  It holds all this info in one place that I always have with me.

There are 3 ways to get your barcode into the phone:

1) Select from List.  I have used this one the most.  The phone takes the number you have entered and looks out there across the net for it.  This works relatively well.  I have only had 1 number that it couldn’t find a match for me.

2) Create on Web.  I haven’t used this, so not sure what to say about it.  

3) Select from photo album.  So, for that one I couldn’t find, I used the built in camera to take a photo of the card, and then selected it.

Scanning ability. I have had good luck also with the ability of clerks to scan right off of the phone, but in a few stores this didn’t work and the clerk had to type in the number.

There are a few things I would like to see different in future releases:

1) I’d like the ability to organize my cards by name- alphabetic.  This would make finding the right card go quicker when I’m at the register.  Or it would be very cool if it ordered them by the amount of times you use the card.  The more you use it, the higher up the list it would show.

2) I’d love to see this app share info with iNeedStuff, my favorite shopping list app.  So, if you are shopping in a specific store and using iNeedStuff, it could remind you to use your reward card.

Cool story about technology and the changing times- Wi-Fi on buses to provide more potential learning time. Very cool.  I wish our city buses had Wi-Fi.  Even so, my iPhone has enabled me to change the way I use commute time to and from work.  Now, I easily, listen to podcasts, do email, and write blog posts while on the bus.

Wi-Fi School Busses Turn Rides into Class Time – Switched.

Voice Messages on the iPhone

So I’m a lousy typist and my handwriting is even worse. That stops me frequently from writing more on my blog or generally writing at all. So any app that can help me by taking voice notes could be helpful to me. At first I was looking for something that would help me add notes/to do items, or events to my calendar. Looking in the iPhone productivity apps I found Jott and began to play around with it.

Jott

Jott for iPhone

Jott quickly became my favorite iPhone app and I used it all the time. I liked the fact that I could send to Twitter with it as well as Facebook. It seemed to work great and generally understood what I was saying. I liked the UI too.
And then one day I logged in to find that it had changed and now you needed an paid account for some features. I’m not opposed to paying for the things I’m using but I wasn’t yet sure I would use it enough to make it worth the cost. And, I had downloaded REQALL, and it was still free.

REQALL

REQALL app for iPhone and ,mobile devices

Reqall is really cool too. I’d like to write more about it, but this blog post has been sitting as a draft for a week now, so I think I’ll publish as is and write more later in another entry. I can’t really compare the two apps in any thorough way, but I can say that Reqall seems to be meeting my expectations very well. The UI is prettier, but that isn’t all that important to me but I liked the light colored background of Jott better.

New Apps Mean a Change in Behavior

One of the problems for me with new apps (and why I hesitant to buy them and or an associated service) is that I often go through a phase with them, and that is it.  They then sit unused.  So has been the case with JOTT and REQALL.  I used Jott heavily for a short time, and then didn’t.  Then, I picked up Reqall and have gone throug the same thing with it.

On the iTunes app store, there are reviews of the applications.  I often read these, and sometimes pick up a useful point or two, but too often, the reviews don’t tell me much except that someone liked an app or didn’t.  And for me, that isn’t all that useful.  Sure if 100 out of 120 people said good things, that suggests the app may be a good download, but what is past that?  What is it like living with the app day in and day out? How often are those reviews written directly after download or shortly afterwards?

So, I wanted to start writing about some of the apps I have downloaded and used.  Something more than, “wow, what a great app!” or “I really like this app.” I wanted to write about why I picked an app; how I started to use it, and how it has changed things for me.

 iNap Arrival Alert

I rarely buy apps, but this was one app that I thought would make a big difference for me, and for $.99, it was worth trying out. iNap Arrival Alert, by moop.me is a app that allows you to nap while en route.  You tell it where your destination is, and how long before that you want to be alerted, and it uses the GPS in your phone to wake you are the designated time.

I stumbled across this by accident, but it was exactly what I needed.  I frequently fall asleep on the bus ride home from work each day.  Fortunately, I generally wake up well before my stop, but it has happened that I have missed my stop, or even if I awaken, I often feel a bit of anxiety about what if I miss my stop. $.99 was well worth it if it allowed me to nap peacefully without that worry.

After download, the app is really easy to use!  I opened the app, set a destination, selected an alert sound, selected an alert radius, set the “wake me up” to ON, and that is all there is to it!

I was surprised at how it found my destination so easily, and have since tried setting the destination in several different ways.  The first, I set with a street corner only- “Negley and Stanton” and it found it just fine.  I have also plugged in a specific street address (address of bank where the bus stops on the way to work) and that worked great too.  I tried a different corner for the trip home on the 500 bus, and wasn’t so successful.  Plugging in “Highland and Stanton” the map switched to somewhere- I have no idea where.  I added the city and the zip, and it found the corner just fine.

There was only one thing that I wasn’t thrilled with at first.  The shortest destination radius was .1 mile and the next was .5 mile.  Set at .5 mile, it wakes me up sooner than needed, but .1 mile isn’t quite enough time to get up and ready to step off the bus.  I emailed moop.me and got a quick reply back to my request, and now, there is a .2 miles option which works perfect for me.

I use iNap even if I’m not falling asleep many days, and especially if I am reading or caught up in thought or the weather is bad outside.  Since it is already pretty dark by the time I head home in the evening, it can be hard to see where you are by just looking out the window.  Some of the buses announce what the next stop is, but some do not. By setting iNap, I never have to worry about where the bus is.  The alarm lets me know that my stop is coming up.

I also can get pretty wrapped up and forget to pay attention if I’m reading, so iNap helps in that case as well.
There are three things I’ve noticed since I started using iNap:

1. The UI seems a bit backwards to me.  The first action item on the window is a slider “Yes/No” for wake me up.  But you can’t tell it “yes” until there is a destination selected. So the first time, it was annoying- I was trying to enable it, and it gave me an error because no destination was selected.  Led me to think that the Yes/No toggle should be the last action option in the list instead of the first.  But then, after that time, it remembers your destinations and the last entry, so you don’t get the error any more.  Not a big issue.  I get why they have it first.  I think it could be last just as easily, but I get why they have it first.
2. The second issue is something that I’m sure is because of Apple’s restrictions/requirements, and isn’t a fault of the app. It would be awesome to set iNap and then switch over to read email or twitter or something.  but this doesn’t work.  Two apps can’t be running at the same time is the way I understand this.  Maybe sometime down the line. You can however listen to music or podcasts and still use iNap.
3. The last is also something that I think is most likely a limitation of the hardware.  I sometimes like to set the music pretty low, but then the destination alert is low too.  It would be cool if you could set the destination alarm volume separate from the music volume. Again, not a big deal.  I just select alarm sounds that will be jarring enough different from the music.

Other apps can send destination coordinates to iNap which sounds really cool, but I haven’t had an opportunity to try that anywhere.

I use this app almost every day! The fact that it meets my need so well, works so well, and the speed and responsiveness of the developers makes this a really great app.  It is possibly the best thing I ever bought for $.99.