in Apple, Mobile

One More Thing…

I have one additional wish list item for Macworld 2009: the iPhone needs a better application launcher. Paging through screens to find the app you are looking for is inefficient and can be frustrating.

January 2, 2009

in Apple, Gadgets, Mobile

MacWorld 2009 Wish List

TUAW asks what I want to see at MacWorld. Check out their predictions. Here is my wish list in order. First is what I want most.

1. A Car PC experience for an Apple product. Voice navigation, Text-to-Speech for email and news, Voice Recorder, Traffic. App Store. This could be related to the rumored Tablet or maybe just a new interface for the iPhone…

2. 6″-9″ device. This should incorporate learnings from the iPhone, NetBooks and Mobile Internet Devices.

3. iPhone: Hulu and Netflix streaming.

4. iPhone: Background downloading of Podcasts, Twitter and Google Reader. If I understand correctly, the promised “push” functionality will be insufficient for these applications, but I’d love to be proven wrong.

5. iPhone: Copy/Paste

6. iPhone: Better calendar integration with Exchange.

7. iPhone: Email more than one photo at a time.

I’m not really in the market for an Apple TV or a Mac Mini, but there are definitely changes they could make to those devices that would make them hard to resist. The Apple Home Server product rumor is also interesting, but I’d be in wait and see mode. Especially after experiencing the flakiness of the Time Capsule product first hand this year.

January 2, 2009

in Apple, Mobile
2 Comments

My Top 10 Favorite iPhone Apps

Short and sweet.

Google Reader’s mobile version – This isn’t a native app. It’s the iPhone Safari version of Google Reader. I’d prefer something native, but, until background downloading comes along, it’s faster for me to just visit the site directly.

Things – a todo app that syncs with the OS X version of Things. This is the first time I’ve had a tasks application so well integrated into my daily life. It’s nice! Not cheap, though – $10 for the iPhone app and $40-$50 for the OS X app.

TwitterFon – My favorite iPhone twitter client. Twittelator is my backup, though. It supports groups so I can view tweets from a small group of people if I’m short on time. I hope TwitterFon adds that kind of functionality soon!

Amazon.com – This app is great in stores. Take photos of the things you want to see reviews on or want to price check. Moments later, the Amazon product pages for those items show up and you can make informed purchases at local stores OR do a 1-click purchase from Amazon.

iPod – The built in iPod functionality is great and I use it a lot for Podcasts, AudioBooks and Music. Still, I wish the Podcast downloading was automatic.

iTalk – Great for taking voice notes.

Yelp – Excellent source of information about local restaurants and services.

Maps – The built in Google Map functionality is great and keeps getting better.

The Creeps – My favorite Tower Defense-style game currently.

Shazam – Helps me identify songs on the radio that I’d like to download when I stop the car.

December 7, 2008

in Apple

More on the Aluminum MacBook RAM Issues

As I noted in Apple’s official discussion boards and my blog in October, the new MacBooks (late 2008 aluminum) are having a hard time with 3rd Party RAM, even when that RAM has the same specs that Apple recommends. As far as I know, noone at Apple has commented on the problem, yet, and the techs I’ve spoken to haven’t mentioned any official message.

Luckily, JKOnTheRun just took up the torch and TUAW is on the case as well. For all those who are not near an Apple store and can’t get the cheap official RAM swap, let’s hope a firmware patch is in the works!

December 1, 2008