iPhone

iPhone GPS, Speakers, and Apps

In deliberating about purchasing the iPad I took the time to think through use cases, considering when and how I use technology on the road, when researching, and in the classroom. Looking backwards rather than forwards I thought I would share with you some of the ways in which I use my iPhone and the gadgets and apps that make it more useful for me.

Speakers/Speakerphone

A while ago I posted my rather inexpensive solution for an iPod clock radio, the Griffin AirCurve ($14.99 at Amazon) and I purchased the iHome iP99BR clock radio/boom box for my daughter’s iPod Touch and she loves it. When, thanks to many of you purchasing items like the AirCurve through my Amazon account, I had some dollars to spend at Amazon I decided to get some portable speakers for use around the house. I chose the Altec Lansing inMotion SoundBlade. This is an 2.5″ thin Bluetooth A2DP (i.e., stereo) speaker/speakerphone for $50. Audiophiles might find the sound lacking, but it is a great solution for most. The sound fills the bedroom and kitchen nicely and the speakerphone features works great!

One tip my brother pointed out to me is using them in the bathroom (something I haven’t done yet). It seems an Apple Genius told him that often people have “water damage” on their iPhone because they plug it into speakers in their bathroom. While the iPhone doesn’t actually get wet, the humidity in the room triggers the water detector in the phone and thus voids the warranty. Being a Bluetooth speaker system your iPhone (or iPod Touch) can be in the room next door while the speakers are in the bathroom, flooding you with your tunes or favorite podcast.

The next purchase was for my wife’s car. There is talk (again) that PA will institute a law requiring handsfree talking on cell phones and my wife doesn’t like earpieces. So I considered another Bluetooth speakerphone solution, the Jabra SP5050 Bluetooth Car Speakerphone. I was able to pick it up for $30 (although it is showing for $67 now) which is quite inexpensive for a handsfree solution. It has worked quite well for my wife but one tip: when first connecting hold down the main button on the Jabra for 7 seconds to put it into connect mode. (You will think it is that mode after just a few seconds, but hold it longer.) After that the only thing you have to remember is to turn it off when you get home, otherwise your car is answering your phone when you are in the house.

TomTom is GoGo!

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Hebrew on the iPhone and iPad

Jan 29th, 2010

by Christian Brady.

13 comments

iPad UPDATE:
I now have my iPad and as suspected there is no Hebrew support. I can’t imagine that this would be omitted for long, given that it is already in the iPhone OS, but it is odd. Perhaps the larger keyboard layout of some of these languages was a problem? Or more likely, as someone else suggested, right-to-left support is already weak in Pages, perhaps they did not want to highlight that fact.

And Steve Jobs did not reply to my email on the subject.

UPDATE:
In checking to see what sort of PDF support the iPad would have (I want to be able to annotate as I can in Preview and Adobe Acrobat) I came across an obvious bit of data at Apple’s Tech Spec page for the iPad. This is not good news and curious, given the Hebrew support already present in the iPhone OS. I wonder if this is just an omission in the notes.

Languages

Language support for English, French, German, Japanese, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Simplified Chinese, Russian

Keyboard support for English (U.S.) English (UK), French (France, Canada), German, Japanese (QWERTY), Dutch, Flemish, Spanish, Italian, Simplified Chinese (Handwriting and Pinyin), Russian

Dictionary support for English (U.S.), English (UK), French, French (Canadian), French (Swiss), German, Japanese, Dutch, Flemish, Spanish, Italian, Simplified Chinese (Handwriting and Pinyin), Russian

In my previous post about the iPad I said that one of only two things I can see lacking (for my use) in the iPad was the ability to input Hebrew. I said at the time that I thought it must be possible since there are programs on the iPhone that allow it, but I had not explored it deeply. Sure enough! It is there and Steve Caruso of The Aramaic Blog was kind enough to enlighten me.

There already exists a Hebrew keyboard for the iPhone, you just need to activate it in the System panel.

Settings -> General -> Keyboard -> International Keyboards

And Hebrew’s about half way down the list. To swap between keyboards, you’ll notice a new key appear to the left of the space bar that looks like a little globe. Give that a tap and you’ll cycle through the ones you have active.

It’s been especially handy to use, and I’ve re-written parts of my translation delivery system to take full advantage of it.

Now if they could only get Syriac on it.

Peace,
-Steve

And a couple of screen shots to show the way (I just realized that I used a slightly different path than Steve describes, but I am too lazy to do the screen grabs again, but you get the idea):

The Advent of the Apple Tablet

Dec 23rd, 2009

by Christian Brady.

5 comments

These are all still just rumors, but after my post yesterday regarding e-book readers I felt I should pass along the news that various industry observers (I wonder if I could be an industry observer? I mean after all I watch what goes on, I listen to the podcasts, even contribute to a podcast now and then. So, you know what? I would like to officially declare myself an industry observer. There, I have done.) are convinced Apple will have an event this January and that there is a likelihood that they will announce a 10 inch tablet. If it looks anything like the image here, courtesy of The Unofficial Apple Weblog, and functions as a decent word processor I’m likely to be very pleased Apple user.

I will say, however, I’m not sure how I feel about a device that is only going to run iPhone applications. I can do a lot with my iPhone, but if I’m going to have a device as big as a 10 inch screen I want to be able to do real work on it. Being able to connect a Bluetooth keyboard will be a must and a decent word processor whose files I can open in Microsoft Word or, better yet, NisusWriter Pro would be imperative. Also, a way to do presentations from this tablet would be important not to mention (and it should go without mentioning because it should be an assumption) the ability to take notes directly on the screen to my PDFs, presentations, websites, anything I can bring up on the screen. Obviously my expectations for tablet are far more than my expectations for an e-book reader. And I expect the price will be commensurate.

Playing with MacSpeech Dictate

Dec 21st, 2009

by Christian Brady.

No comments yet

Some of you may be aware that in the last two weeks company called Dragon has released Dragon Dictation for the iPhone and Dragon Search. I was so impressed with the dragon dictation and in need of a good dictation software that I thought I would give their Mac version a try. MacSpeech Dictate is $154.99 and within 15 minutes I was up and running. It comes with a very nice Plantronics headset, to install disks, and a quick start guide that does what it says. There are quite a number of commands that you can use, including commands to control the keyboard.

The actual speech training only took about 10 minutes. What I think will take me a little bit longer is to learn all the commands and commit them to memory. What is impressive is that I am able to actually have music on, not loud, in the background and the software is still able to discern my voice from the background noise. (Not that the music I listen to is noise, mind you, but you get the idea.) In fact, I’m writing this post using MacSpeech dictation. After about 40 minutes, however, I realized that the headset is pinching my ears and I actually didn’t need an earpiece. So, I simply plugged in one of my podcasting mics and I’m all set! It sits on my desk just below my monitor and works a treat.

My reason for getting this software is that nowadays I tend to give quite a number of speeches and I find that while writing more academic work is not a real problem in terms of composition, speeches require a different style. I have taken to using the voice memo feature and my iPhone in order to dictate my speech and then sit down and transcribe it myself. Furthermore, I have to admit I’m beginning to get some tendinitis in my wrists and shoulders and the less I have to type and use the keyboard and mouse probably the better.

It really is amazing what the software can do. The last time I tried dictation software was probably seven or eight years ago. Back then I had the headset whose color matched to the iMac of choice costs over $400 (not that I paid for it of course) and took a tremendous amount of work to train the software. In the end it was more trouble than it was worth. By this, is different. Maybe David Pogue was right after all. (And look! David Pogue’s name is even in their dictionary. Somehow I am not surprised.)

Having dictated this whole post, I have to say there aren’t many corrections. Although I still find myself modulating my voice is if you can hear my tone, pitch, and oral italics.

Gloves for using your iPhone or iPod

Dec 18th, 2009

by Christian Brady.

5 comments

Last week the kids were sledding and I while I did not take my DSLR with me for fear of harming it, I did have my iPhone. I took some nice little videos and I was quite pleased with a few of the pictures. One drawback? My right hand was frozen at the end of play time! So onto my Christmas wish list goes these babies, Tavo Gloves with Playpoint Technology. Of course I am told that there are some crafty folks figuring out how to make such gloves themselves, but for those of us who are digitally challenged, Tavo may be the best choice.