A twitter and PSU colleague, ScooterNSticks, reminded me of Camera+, an app with great effects that I had purchased ($2) some time ago. The special effects really are superb (see the barn image in a previous post) and it also provides far more control of the iPhone camera than the standard app allows. What I did not realize is that it too had sharing features.

So there you have two apps that are well worth having on your phone if you like to take and share pictures. Remember, the best camera you own is the one that is with you. Here is one more image, enhanced by Camera+ with the “Fashion” filter.

Some days are just like this.

 

Tending goal is a lonely business.

You know me by now, I love photography more than comics. The iPhone does not have the best camera among smart phones, but it isn’t bad, at all. Sharing those images is part of the fun and while flickr is a great storage/sharing service there is no quick way to upload and share from the iPhone. Then came Instagram.

I am late to this party and it isn’t a perfect bash, for sure, but it is a nice free app an service. You take a picture, add one or none of a variety of filters including tilt/shift, and then upload to facebook, twitter, email addresses, etc. So when I took this shot of my son I was able to send it to twitter, facebook, and flickr and also send it to my wife’s email (since she never checks the other sites).

Add to that the new app Postagram (created by an SHC grad) which connects to Instagram and allows you to mail a physical postcard of your image and you have a great travel tool. When in Cali two weeks ago I took and instantly shared images with the fam. Then I sent a postcard to the kids that arrived after I did, but they loved it!

 

Flickr: My stuff tagged with instagramapp.

 

So far just a few niggles. When you go to easy install it took me a few tries for it to load the complete listing of my available modules. Unfortunately that included Atlas files which cannot be installed on the iOS device. Every text has the book and verse reference on every line. You can turn that off in the desktop app but I cannot find the option to do that in the iOS app. You can only open two texts at once, not really a complaint, even on the iPad you cannot really see more than that usefully, but I could not close the Bible text pane in order to open just the Hebrew and English Mishnah texts.

And all of those comments should be seen as minor. This is an incredibly welcome app to the iOS and further moves it to my only device on the road. I will post a more complete review next week, in the meantime, it is FREE so download it now!

 

So what is my problem? If you have set the music on your iPad to stream to your stereo, even if you have stopped the iPod app from playing, and begin to play a game, say Plants v. Zombies, the audio continues through to your stereo. Having snuck out of the family room to complete a level of Angry Birds, I was caught by the sounds of exploding birds and grunting pigs going throughout the house via the stereo. Oops.

 

Just a reminder that if you want to also follow what I share via Google Reader you may: http://www.google.com/reader/shared/prof.brady

You do not need to use Google Reader, by the way, to see my shared items or even to use the GR features. Or at least you don’t need to use GR directly. I useNewsRack on my iPad and iPhone which connects and syncs to my GR account. It allows me to Share, Like, and so on from within the app.

 

Many of these titles are freely downloadable in ePub format and can be synced to iBooks for your portable reading pleasure. Here’s a quick run-down of some of the recommended books, along with quick links to iBooks-compatible downloads.

• Flatland by Edwin Abbot (Illustrated version)
• Confessions by St. Augustine
• Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan (Also available in iTunes Audiobook format)
• The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper (Illustrated version)
• Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin (Illustrated version, also available in MP3 audio)
• American Notes for General Circulation by Charles Dickens
• Autobiography by Ben Franklin
• The Blithedale Romance by Nathaniel Hawthorne
• Kim by Rudyard Kipling
• Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis
• Speeches and Letters, Abraham Lincoln (the article refers to Speeches and Writings, so I hope I linked to the correct ePub here…)
• On Liberty by John Stuart Mills (PDF but iBooks-compatible)
• Apology of Socrates by Plato
• Crito by Plato
• Parallel Lives by Plutarch (PDF but iBooks-compatible)
• Essay on Criticism by Alexander Pope
• Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain (Illustrated version, also available as an audio book)
• Candide by Voltaire (Illustrated version, also available as an audio book)
• Eight Years of Trouble in Samoa, Robert Louis Stephenson

 

Cases
I started out with Apple iPad Case which I found to be very nice. It is a soft microfiber that is completely form fitting, which is very nice since it does not add any substantial bulk to the device. The best part, and what was initially lacking in all other leather case offerings, is the ability to prop the iPad at an angle perfect for typing. Eventually I discovered the Marware Eco-Vue for iPad. At the moment you can get it for $4 less than the $39 Apple case. The Mareware is a beautiful leather case that has a prop for the ideal typing angle I mentioned a moment ago, a hand strap in the back for those times you are wandering around holding the iPad (perhaps in an industrial or hospital setting? perhaps library?), and an elastic strap to close it, similar to a Moleskin notebook. The interior is a very nice gray suede. My top pick for an iPad case.

Apps
In an early post about using the iPad on the road I mentioned the excellent BibleReader and iAnnotatePDF. Both apps have gone from strength to strength. I would add to your must have list DropBox. If you do not have this, you should get it now. DropBox is a cloud storage service that will give you a free 2GB account and software for your Windows or Mac desktop and all your mobile devices, including iOS, Android, and soon BlackBerry. The iPad app is fantastic, allowing you to view your files and, where it is an appropriate file type, open them in another iPad app for the purpose of editing or viewing such as Pages or iAnnotatePDF or GoodReader. We are still lacking a good “round trip” solution that allows you to download, edit, and upload a file, but DropBox is close and their programmers tell me they are working on it very diligently.

A few other apps I recommend are the Guardian Eyewitness, a daily update of their best news photo with pro tips, NPR news app, IMDb for movies, and AirVideo (recommended by my brother) which allows you to stream movies from your computers hard-drive to your iOS device from anywhere! Not bad for $2.99. The other apps are free.

iPhone 4
I upgraded to the iPhone 4 not long after it launched, receiving prompt shipping just 2 days after making my order at the local AT&T store. It is a gorgeous device, the screen, the physical form, the new iOS, it is all very well executed. The front glass is amazing. I have not put any screen protector on it and yet no smudges and not even a hint of scratches. The back is not the same “gorilla glass” but so far has held up very well.

You have no doubt heard about “antennagate,” well I seem to be fairly lucky since I saw now such problems and could not even reproduce the loss of signal, even with my beefy hands. I did pick up the Apple bumper case at the 5th Ave Apple Store (and have since been reimbursed for it by Apple) for protection. It is very nice, just covering the sides and apparently it protects the phone very well. Since the back is not covered I may get a custom ZAGGskin. They make the best screen protector, the ZAGG invisibleSHIELD, and with the skin they will imprint an image of your choice (make it tasteful). So I think I may get a thin case that will protect the back glass as well, the Griffin Reveal Etch is my likely choice.

One note about the bumper. In typical Apple fashion the case is made to very precise specifications. That means that while the Apple headphone jack and USB cable fit with the bumper on, any other version does not. I use and love the Griffin AutoPilot Charger, it allows you to simply plug right into the iPhone port, charge the phone and even control the iPod from the adapter (the auxiliary cable comes off the adapter rather than the iPhone headphone jack). The problem is that the connector is just too big for the bumper case. Being who I am I decided to hack it. The connector has a black shield around it which I removed, but that required just a touch of superglue to keep the gray cover from sliding off the connector itself. Now it fits perfectly. Of course you could always just remove the bumper or choose another case.

BTW the “best iPhone clock radio” that I blogged about before, the Griffin AirCurve, works just fine with the phone in the bumper, just remove any adapter that you might have placed in the base.

All the old apps are working fine and many have been updated to take advantage of iOS 4. Again, I have been fortunate, where others have had problems upgrading their 3GS or 3G we have been fine in our family. As always, YMMV…

 

1. I periodically share about what electronic products I use, just as I do books I am reading. I often link to the products on Amazon. In the interest of full discloser (but most of you no doubt already realize this), I do receive a small amount if you buy something at Amazon having followed one of those links. I greatly appreciate and it does help to fuel this blogging habit of mine. Many thanks!

One of the only explicitly teaching-related iOS apps that I use is Attendance, a straightforward program by David Reed, a computer science professor at Capital University. I reviewed the app forMacworld.com upon its first release, and have used it religiously over the intervening 18 months.

Attendance has such a straightforward purpose that, frankly, I haven’t paid much attention to the features added in recent updates. It turns out that Attendance is a universal app, in that it runs on iPhones, iPod Touches, and the iPad.

This seems a simple and elegant solution that includes nods to real world concerns, such as being able to add pictures of your students so you can actually remember who they are.

The second is a story about schools attempting to use Twitter as a recruitment tool. While admissions offices are moving to Twitter as a means of recruiting students they are finding that HS students are not even on the social networking site.

Colleges are ramping up efforts to connect with prospective students through Twitter—but students aren’t interested, a new study says.

Evidence has shown that teenagers rely on college visits and Web sites to learn about colleges, rather than social-media outlets. When it comes to Twitter, students are barely on the site at all, let alone for college research purposes.

I am sure many of us could have told them that. In fact, the director of marketing quoted noted that while HS students aren’t interested in Twitter they admissions workers are all late 20s to mid-30s, the Twitter demographic. But I think it is wrong to move away from social media. The real power of these tools is the ability to make them work together. My shcdean Twitter account is connected to my Facebook status and my SHC blog. When I update one the others are all updated and I know that the others are being read. So, one “push of the button,” so to speak, and I hit all the major outlets. The trick then, as always, is to use the tools intelligently, not just follow the trends.

 

Walled Garden by recursion_see_recursion on flickr, used under Creative Commons license.

There is much debate about whether Apple’s ecosystem (iTunes/App Store/iPhone/iPad) is an attempt to control your life or simply offer you a good consumer experience. The Unofficial Apple Weblog has a link to a post and commentary suggesting that the iPad and the whole Apple system is akin to AOL. You remember AOL, the old AOL I mean, who offered you all the internet without any of the muss and fuss. Of course that AOL died out once folks realized they could use Netscape for themselves.

John Battelle’s post cited by TUAW is titled, “Is The iPad A Disappointment? Depends When You Sold Your AOL Stock.” He argues that the iPad will fail

in the long term, in particular if Apple doesn’t change its tune on how the iPad interacts with the web.

He then goes on to say that the iPad does not really interact with the web, or at least apps cannot link to the web. And this, he argues will be the downfall of the iPad. Except I can get access to anything (non-Flash, granted)¹ on the web through my iPad. OK maybe a programmer can’t always get at what she wants directly within the app, but many apps I use (newsreaders, twitter, BBC) link out to the web via Safari. So I think that this prediction of John’s like his earlier prediction that the iPad would fail, is likely to be wrong.

TUAW, however, phrases the question differently and made me think of a different metaphor.

AOL was a “walled garden” of their content, and as long as Apple maintains its grip on the App Store, it’s that same garden; each app works within its own flower pot, almost completely independent of the others.

I have often heard people, as alluded to in my introduction, say that they object to Apple controlling so tightly what can go into their app store. Last night Steve Jobs apparently referred to this as the “curated” approach where 95% of the apps are approved, so long as they don’t crash and use the public API. Those less generous say that it is a walled off place, hidden and protected, BUT what we really want and need is open and freely available software. Now I won’t get into the religious wars of open source software. Instead I offer a different metaphor, that of an old fashioned store.

The App Store is not so much a garden as a grocery store or, to be more direct, computer store, with items clearly labeled, boxed, and vetted. Remember when you used to have to buy software in a box, with floppies and maybe even a manual? One of the benefits of that system was that you knew where the software was coming from, you had some assurance that this copy of Fox Pro was actually made by Fox Software and was not, in fact, a trojan horse designed to bring your system down.

Some may say that I am being an Apple apologeticist, it has happened in the past, but this seems to me the best of both worlds. I can download my software without having to go to a brick store, but I have some assurance that what I am getting is legitimate and will not harm my machine. Yes, it is a controlled environment, but as with food, medicine, and motor vehicles I think quality control is a positive, not a negative.

 

1. In my day to day use I rarely find myself saying, “Darn! If only I could access this Flash content on my iPad.” I just don’t miss it.