Category: iPhone

shazam on the iphone

Thursday, 31 July 2008 22:57 Written by Mike 0 Comments

I have been wanting to blog some on the new applications on the iPhone.  This is really my first and it is first because it has to be my favorite application.

The application is called Shazam.  Shazam is an application that listens to a song on the radio or playing from anywhere else and queries a database of music and tells you the name of the song, the album and the artist.  It then allows you purchase the music from iTunes.

It does not work so well when you sing the song, in fact it never worked for me.  But, I cannot sing either :)   From the description though it can only index the original music from an artist.

You can visit www.shazam.com for more information but they really do not say much about how they do this.  It is amazing to me that they can identify music in just a few seconds.  So far I have had a great experience.  More than 9 out of 10 songs I have used shazam on are found.  And in one click you can purchase right from iTunes.

Of course that quick access to iTunes can be a dangerous thing for some people :)

There is no charge for the iPhone application and it can be downloaded right from the app store on the iPhone or in iTunes.

If you have an iPhone and have not yet downloaded Shazam, I recomend that you do.  You will be amazed as well.

iphone 2.01?

Thursday, 31 July 2008 22:46 Written by Mike 0 Comments

Apparently some of the folks over at boy genius have been seeing some logs of files for a new release of the iPhone.  It seems that build 5B101 is the 2.0.1 software for first-generation iPhones, while 5B103 is for 3G iPhones.

No details on what is in the update or when it will be released yet.  There have been complaints about the accelerometer and camera.  I personally can report a much worse battery life than before the update and also lots of lockups and need to reboot.

More updates to follow I am sure.

iPhone 2.0 update

Monday, 28 July 2008 15:16 Written by Mike 0 Comments

Ok, I have had the upgrade now for almost 2 weeks.  And I have been on vacation so I am writing this without checking to see if another iPhone update is available.

Battery life on 2.0 is much worse than before the upgrade.  Applications seem to be locking up on me and I have to reboot the phone to fix them.  Twice now I have had to perform a hard reset by holding down the power button the function button on the front.

It has been a bit frustrating since the upgrade.  The upgrade did add a ton of cool nice new shiny stuff.

I will check for an update later tonight and see if maybe Apple released some fixes for the glaring issues while I was out relaxing in the sun.

iPhone 2.0

Friday, 18 July 2008 15:22 Written by Mike 0 Comments

Ok, so the new iPhone has been out for 7 days and iPhone 2.0 software has been out just a little bit longer.  I am still on my old original iPhone but now with iPhone 2.0.

So far I am not overly impressed.  Well let me say, I love the new stuff they added but they also added some not so good stuff as well.  There are a ton more problems.  The problems are not just with the new iPhone but with iPhone 2.0.

New Stuff:

Lets start out with some of the positives first….

  1. My #1 is it now support Activesync via Microsoft Exchange OWA.  This is major.  I can now use the iPhone with my corporate email, with security, etc.  And Amazingly, it works much better than my Windows Mobile 6.0 device I have been carrying around for my corporate email.I mean I can add a calendar entry and in seconds it appears in my outlook calendar.  Email is fast and best of all.  There is no more searching the GAL for people.  It does it for you automagically in the background.  Very Cool.
  2. My number two big item….  3rd party app support that can be installed and run locally.  Shouldn’t this have been in the first release after all?
  3. Bulk Email deletion is much better now.  Plus they added another little secret deletion trick (see the Tips and Tricks below).
  4. They put the contacts on as an icon/app now so you no longer have to go into the phone to get to your contacts.
  5. The new AppStore where you can download low cost or FREE applications for the iPhone and install them on the iPhone.  So you can actually play them on a plan when the wireless is off.  There are some really cool apps out there and they are just starting to become available.  Just wait till a little time goes by.

I will be writing some followup blogs on some of the Applications that are available on the iPhone.

Problems:

Of course with every new code release there are problems.  Some of these problems are taking some of the fun out of the iPhone for me.

  1. Battery life with iPhone 2.0 is horrible.  It does not last half as long as it did prior to the software upgrade.
  2. Programs Lock up.  Sometimes it locks up for as long as 30 seconds.  There does not appear any specific program that causes it or it happens in.   I have been doing lots of reboots which seems to fix it for a little while.

What is still missing?

Well, I am a little disappointed that the new iPhone 2.0 does not have a few features.

  1. There is still no copy and paste functionality.
  2. There is no voice dial.
  3. GPS is not a navigateable GPS.  It only shows a little dot where you are located.  It gives no directions, etc.

The App Store:

The new App Store on the iPhone is cool.  You can see a quick list of applications that are available for the iPhone.  Many of them are free, the rest are low cost app.  There are some very cool applications, games, etc available.

I am going to spend some more blog time reviewing a few of these apps.

Tips and Tricks:

Screen capture

The iPhone 2.0 now has a screen capture function.  When you perform a screen capture the image of the screen is saved into your camera roll of pictures.  You can really freak some one if you take a screen capture then view the picture.  It looks just like the desktop.

Quick Email Delete

New in iPhone 2.0 is the ability to quickly delete a single email message.  Apple made the bulk delete much better than before with the edit button.  Now, if you have only one email you want to delete….  Slid your finger over the message starting at the right edge towards the left edge.  A delete button will pop up on the message.

Keep checking back for more iPhone updates and application reviews.

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