resistance to persistence

Another joy of the iPhone. So since my last post I tracked an iPhone down. I was calling everywhere and a local rogers video had just gotten a shipment of 2 in. I drove as fast as I could legally get there and snatched it up. Within 2 minutes the last one was gone by a guy who just happened to walk on and ask. And I’ve been loving every minute of my tech gadget fun. I’ll post more of a review later.

The main point of this post is that it was completely done on my phone - and quickly too. Wordpress (my blogging software) has an iPhone application so I can write blog posts on my phone. This is great. I’d always been wanting to tap out a post when I have idle time and now it’s possible. It’s usually as I’m walking around that I think of post ideas and I forget them by the time I get in front of a computer. Now I can write one anywhere I have my phone.

So hopefully you’ll be seeing a lot more content on this blog in the future.

i’m still searching for an iPhone. I missed the launch on 7/11 since I had some repair guys at the house and couldn’t go line up. now I’ve been on the hunt for phones. everywhere i went, they were sold out and didn’t know when they’d be getting any more. it’s now 6 days after the launch and i still can’t find a 16gb iPhone. i’ve found a couple 8gb phones, but the 16gb are a hot commodity and in limited stock. hopefully i can catch a break and find one soon. got any tips on where to find one?

evernote keeps your visual memories on all your computers

i started using evernote a few years ago. at the time, it was only on the pc. recently, they’ve added support for mac, phones and a web interface. now they even sync your notes across the internet so anything you add on one machine will end up on all your other locations. this is great for me - if I come across something on my work pc, I can add it to evernote and it’ll end up on my mac at home. they have a free service where you can use up to 40MB/month. if you want more, you can pay $5/month.

So what is Evernote?

Evernote allows you to easily capture information in any environment using whatever device or platform you find most convenient, and makes this information accessible and searchable at any time, from anywhere.

You can directly “clip” (like copy & paste) from Outlook, Firefox, Internet Explorer into Evernote. Or any copy & paste can become a note in Evernote.

For example, say I read an article on my lunchbreak at work and I want to store it for reference later. Bookmarks are lame. Printing kills trees. Evernote stores it as a note you can read later. I use it for photos ideas I come across, great articles I want to reread later, tutorials, etc. And now with the new syncing ability, I can review it on my home computer later that evening.

You can tag your notes with keywords for searching and sorting. And now, Evernote even has visual character recognition. Take a photo of a business card using your webcam, add it to Evernote and it will recognize the text in the photo. So later, when you need to find that business card for “John Smith”, just type a search for it and Evernote will “read” it off the business card photo. Very cool.

lots of cool features, and finally a way to store all the interesting articles I come across

Canada gets some phone equality

i was giddy when the announcement was made - iPhone is coming to Canada. And July 11 will be the payoff. I’ll definitely be at Rogers that morning getting an update. The only remaining question is the data plans. There’s lots of rumors that the plans will be close to what is offered in the US, which will be a huge change after seeing not even close to equivalent data rates. Imagine if gas cost $5/gallon (not too hard with today’s rates) in the US, in Canada it would be something like $40/gallon in Canada. You’d see a lot of empty streets and highways. And that’s what it’s been in Canada - people just can’t afford to use wireless internet on their phones. Hopefully that will be changed in the next couple weeks and Canada’s wireless services will take off.

One thing I’m looking forward to is having Google Maps on my phone. I had been contemplating getting a GPS for the car. With Google Maps, I’ll at least be able to get an idea of where to go, without the turn by turn voice navigation.

And now I’ll have one less thing filling up my pockets. I’ve been carrying around my large 20Gb classic ipod (circa Feb 2005 after my 40Gb died) and a Nokia 6682 (no small phone either). I like the Nokia because it has my calendar and all my contacts in there which I couldn’t do with other phones. I need a smartphone. the iPhone is like Reese’s peanut butter cups. “You’ve got your phone in my music.” “No, you’ve got your music in my phone.”

A few things I’ll need to look into

• How to sync my work Outlook Calendar with my home Mac - I think there’s a solution available using Google Calendar as an intermediate.
• Cool new apps to install - What are the best apps? I’ll definitely need a game for idle time, some sort of todo list, a notepad, something to jot out blog posts. What else? Any recommendations?
• A case/cover - I’ve got a silicon cover for my iPod and I like the fact that it doesn’t slide around when I put it down on the car console, etc. Offers a bit of bounce to keep it protected for those rare times when i’ve dropped it.

Will you be upgrading to an iPhone?

Energizer’s Energi To Go

Disclaimer: I was given this product for free to try but that does not mean my opinion is being “bought”.

I received a nice bundle of free product in the mail to try out and review. I qualified since I’m a heavy iPod user and take it everywhere with me.

Energizer created a Energi To Go product for people on the go with their iPods. If you’re away from your charger or forgot to pack it on a trip, you can recharge it using battery power.

The box was filled with a bunch of goodies, including a giant stuffed Energizer bunny. A couple of the new Lithium batteries, a mini speaker, a bunch of $3-off coupons towards the purchase of an Energi To Go charger (give me a shout if you want one) and most importantly, 2 Energi To Go chargers (one for me, one to share with a friend).

So the concept is this…you’re travelling and realized you’ve forgotten your charger. You’re about to board a plane and realize if you had your iPod charged you wouldn’t have to listen to the screaming kids you see will be on the flight with you. Rather than face that nightmare, you can purchase a power source to keep you rocking on the long flight.

The Energi To Go adapts to a lot of different iPod models and allows you charge your iPod or listen to it as needed. Once the batteries die, put in some new ones and you’re still in business. I think a set of batteries gets you 2 charges of your iPod or about 20 hours of listening.

My honest thoughts on the product - I think I’d only buy this product in the case I mention above for the traveller facing a long period of time without music. In that case, I would gladly pay for one if I saw it at the airport. But for daily travels, I could deal with a couple hours without music. I usually drop my iPod in the cradle at the end of the day to make sure it’s ready to go the next morning.

At Christmas, I was looking at buying a cigarette lighter charger for the car as there’s been some times when I’m driving out of town for the weekend and I’ve got a low charge but now I don’t have to thanks to the Energi To Go. I’ll leave it in the glovebox for just those occasions.

But now you know for the next time you’re travelling over to Australia without your charger to check the airport shops so you can keep your sanity on the long flights.

When I was in New York a couple of weeks ago, one of my definite destinations was an Apple store. The iPod Touch had just come out and I could finally experience an iPhone in person. But getting to actually try one wasn’t going to be as easy as I hoped.

The tables with iPods and iPhones were crammed with people. There was about a dozen iPhones and a dozen iPod Touchs laid out to try and people were taking their time trying them out. Lineups formed around each one, people looking over shoulders, waiting for someone to put one down just to have it snatched up by the next interested person. I planned my strategy trying to predict who was next to put it down and then running around to the other side of the table, but it was too late - someone had already picked it up.

After about 10 frustrating minutes of cat and mouse, I finally got my hands on one. And it was sweet. It just felt right. I tried as many of the applications as possible. Music and coverflow worked fabulously. Picking music now felt much more like choosing from a CD collection. And I noticed there’s a rocker button on the side to adjust volume up and down. In my previous review, I expected it to all be screen touch.

Photo time. The built in camera takes amazingly clear pictures. Maybe it’s just the screen that makes it look so good, but lighting and crispness of images is amazing. This would be great to have at parties. The screen makes sharing the images so good as well. You can flip through the images, just like coverflow, pushing them to the side. Spread your fingers apart and you can zoom in. Push around and pan the image. I wish Photoshop editing was this intuitive.

The internet browser was the same. I opened a bookmark to a newspaper website and I could zoom into the page, slide it around, click into stories to read. So fast and clear. The text rendering is very sharp.

Actual calls and sending text messages on the phone was disabled for obvious reasons, but you could still get a good idea of how everything worked. The address book was great and visual. I tried to tap out a text message, and I won’t lie - it was difficult. But I expected that. I’ve heard people say you just have to type and not care that you’ve made mistakes - the software will correct it to the right words. But for me, I must have been typing too many wrong letters as it wasn’t correcting my words. I don’t even have large fingers and i found it hard to type the tiny keys. I’ve also read it takes a little bit of time to get used to it, but after a couple days, you’re flying.

Overall, it was just so enjoyable to use and drool worthy.

After my short trial, we grabbed some lunch at a nearby Thai cafe, Peep. The washrooms are hilarious. The door to the 2 individual unisex washrooms are right in the dining area. And once you get in, you’re shocked. When you look back to where you came in, you can see the dining room. It’s one-way mirror glass. And the opposite wall is a mirror reflecting the dining room as well. So at all times, you’re fully aware of people looking in your direction in the washroom, yet only you can see them. Very funny to experience.

Photo copyright of Mark J. Terrill/Associated Press

The reason why I bring up Peep is that there were two girls sitting next to us that must have overheard us discussing the recent Britney Spears MTV VMA debacle. Shortly after, they had an iPhone out on the table, laughing and watching together the Britney performance from YouTube. Could the iPhone be the tool that makes the anti-social internet a social gathering? Will we huddle around it, reviewing photos from our recent trips? Watching the latest episode of The Office together? Listening to the latest album release?

Will you buy an iPhone?

iPod Touch - all that I wanted

I was right! After Apple announced the iPhone, I felt a bit left out…I wanted all those features in an iPod, especially the widescreen video. It’s the reason I held off upgrading to an iPod Video edition. Today, Apple announced the iPod Touch, all the features of the iPhone, minus the phone. Exactly what I asked for when I blogged about it back in January.

Here’s what I said back in January…

Here’s what I want to see…take the iPhone, minus the phone capabilities, take out the internet capabilities (nice, but not essential) and just leave me the widescreen ipod. That’s all I want. I want videos widescreen, the new navigation capabilities with coverflow, rotational knowledge, etc. All that is cool. And maybe leave in the 2MP camera along with iPhoto so I can load up some photos too. I’ll use it to backup my memory card from my camera while I’m travelling.

I was pretty close. They left the internet capabilities…I should have guessed at that…anything that allows you to buy songs online with the updated iTunes wifi music store. I still would have liked the camera to stay, but I’ll make due with my cameraphone instead.

I can’t wait to try one out (and even more to have one). They’re out September 28. Another occasion to have the press watch the large overnight lineups and push the Apple stock even higher.

The controls will take a bit to get used to. I will actually miss the wheel control. When I’m walking to work, my iPod is in my pocket. And I always know where the pause button is and I can even adjust the volume up or down without having to look at it or take it out of my pocket. This is also very important in the winter time. The less I have to take off my gloves the better. With the iPod touch, I’ll have to turn the screen on (I’ll turn it off to save power) with the home button twice and then adjust the volume or pause. But I’ll have to visually see where these buttons…no more blind pocket pressing unless I get really good at remembering where on the screen the pause button is. Sometimes having some tactile buttons are a good thing. Don’t get me wrong, I love the Touch and will be anxious to see one and try out the controls in person, especially since we don’t have the iPhones in Canada.

The iPod Touch comes in 2 sizes, 8GB for $299 USD ($329 CDN) or 16GB for $399 ($449 CDN).

What do you think about the new iPod Touch? Are you going to buy one? Leave me a comment.

from Core77…. And remember, this is US prices. Canadian rates are much higher.

AT&T has just announced their iPhone plan rates. So how much will it actually cost you to get an iPhone, including your first month of service? Let’s see: $499 for the 4GB, $599 for the 8GB. Sales tax (for example, 8.375% in New York State). One-time AT&T activation fee of $36.

AT&T iPhone plan rates: 450 minutes, $60 (after taxes more like $72). 900 minutes, $80 (around $96 after taxes). 1,350 minutes, $100 (around $120 after taxes).

So what’s the damage?

4GB with 450: $648.79
4GB with 900: $672.79
4GB with 1,350: $698.79

8GB with 450: $757.17
8GB with 900: $781.17
8GB with 1,350: $807.17

I hope you really enjoy talking on the phone if you want to pay that much. I <3 Apple and the iPod and I would love to have an iPhone, but I can’t spend that kinda cash.Unless I get to try out another phone from a friendly PR company.