Posts Tagged ‘cell phones’

Wunder Radio Ist Wunderbar

By Chief Oddball on August 29th, 2009 at 5:13 pm

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I discovered a really cool iPhone application on Friday. It’s called Wunder Radio, and it allows you to stream tens of thousands of radio stations from all over the world right to your phone — even over the cellular network.

There’s a little something for everyone here. For example, I can now listen to our afternoon local talk show guy no matter where I am, or the Detroit-based news radio station I used to listen to on the way to school every morning over a decade ago. You can pull up Japanese radio stations that are actually in Japan, or stations from a huge array of other countries (yep, Thailand included). There’s content ranging from music, sports and talk radio to police scanners, weather radio and air traffic control. I’ve often wished someone would create an FM radio tuner device for the iPhone, but now I no longer care!

The content itself isn’t the only cool part; for some reason, it’s fun to hear commercials from other regions. Or other nations!

The Wunder Radio app (which is also available for Blackberries and Windows Mobile devices) is essentially the mobile extension of RadioTime, a website where you can stream all of these same stations directly to your PC, if you’re so inclined. If you’re into radio, check it out.

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Kool-Aid, Apple Flavor

By Chief Oddball on March 19th, 2009 at 9:57 pm

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It was one year ago that I bought my first piece of Apple technology (Apple as in “Computer,” although they have since excised that word from their name): the iPhone. Three months later, the iPhone 3G landed, making us all feel like gits (although in retrospect, the AT&T mandatory data plan on the original iPhone is a much better value!).

Now, I’m gearing up to take another sip of that famous Apple Kool-Aid, because I’m almost certain that we’re just a matter of three months away from iPhone Revision 3.

There’s been no official announcement, of course. Apple, being savvy marketers if nothing else, wouldn’t dare say “There will be a new iPhone this summer,” because it would mean the immediate crash of existing iPhone sales while everyone waits for the new unit. But all signs point to a summer (possibly June) 2009 release of “iPhone 3.0.” For instance:

  • June is now recognized internally as the anniversary of Apple’s iPhone “product cycle,” as admitted by Apple marketing executive Phil Schiller. The last iPhone hardware revision was issued in June of 2008.
  • In June 2009, the first adopters of the original iPhone come off their two-year AT&T contracts.
  • This week, AT&T introduced the option to purchase “unsubsidized” iPhone 3Gs, which is seen by some as a hint that they are attempting to hasten sales of the unit’s remaining stocks.
  • Also this week, iPhone OS 3.0 beta was released to developers, similar to the way iPhone OS 2.0 was previewed in March of 2008, just before the iPhone 3G release (the iPhone 3G was not announced at the iPhone OS 2.0 preview event, either).

Speaking of iPhone OS 3.0, I followed along with the developer preview as it unfolded this past Tuesday. Suffice it to say, this is a pretty big update for the device — and it finally adds a host of features and capabilities that should have been there since day one.

OS 3.0 will be a free update for all existing first-gen and 3G iPhones, and a $10 paid upgrade for iPod Touch owners. Here’s what it includes:

  • Copy and paste support
  • MMS (picture messages) — iPhone 3G only
  • Stereo Bluetooth via A2DP — iPhone 3G & iPod Touch Rev.2 only
  • Push notification
  • 1,000 new APIs for app development
  • Support for hardware accessory connections
  • Turn-by-turn GPS directions
  • Peer-to-peer connectivity between iPhones
  • Device-wide search feature (called “Spotlight”)
  • Notes can now be synced to your computer
  • Landscape keyboard now works in all apps
  • Support for in-app purchases and subscriptions

We’re still missing video recording and Adobe Flash support, but this is a great start toward filling in the embarrassing gaps in the iPhone’s “basic functionality” portfolio. Even more interesting, though, are all of the new developer APIs and the belated arrival of push notification, which open up a lot of new ways the device can be expanded through third-party software. Since I bought my iPhone, free OS updates and a handful of applications have turned it into a vastly more versatile device. I’m looking forward to more of that!

I’m not the only one who’s excited about the possibility of a new iPhone hardware revision. My wife Apple is excited too, because as soon as the new phone lands, she gets my old one. I was doing a little research today into the total cost of our AT&T bill, assuming we had one first-gen iPhone and one to-be-announced iPhone 3.0. The pricing is a bit overwrought and a bit of a mess, and I still think the fact that AT&T stopped including 200 free SMS messages with the mandatory iPhone data plan was an extremely cheap-ass maneuver. But when I consider the value I get from my phone — and that Apple would get from having one of her own — it becomes clearly worth it to me. Especially since we weren’t paying that much less when Apple had a phone on Verizon that didn’t do a damn thing besides make calls.

The fact that I like the iPhone so much is a bit weird; after all, I’ve historically believed that Macs were too limiting and hand-holding for my taste as a computer enthusiast. And yet I’m not gravitating to Symbian or Android mobile devices; instead I went right for the iPhone. I guess I’m getting to a point in my life when having maximum tinker ability in a device just doesn’t matter anymore, because I’m busy enough that I just need stuff to work the way it’s supposed to and be done with it. Never thought I’d see it. But I did just turn 29, so I can use that as a catch-all excuse. ;)

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Jumped on the iPhone Bandwagon

By Chief Oddball on March 4th, 2008 at 10:26 pm

Filed under Reviews ··· 3 Comments

So last week, as I was shaking off the last vestiges of whatever ridiculous illness I was suffering from, I did something I’d been meaning to do for a while now: I bought a 16 GB Apple iPhone.

Love it or hate it, I find that the iPhone is another example of Apple’s exemplary user interface design. Since UI design is often part of my own profession, I appreciate the benefit that a well-made UI can bring to the user experience. Compared to the other phones I’ve used, the iPhone’s user interface is a real treat.

I’ve never owned a “smart phone” before, or anything close to it. Every cell phone I’ve had until now has been just that: a cell phone, and very little else. Sure, I send a text message once in a while. But I’ve never paid for a data plan, never done any mobile browsing or email on my phone. It just seemed…unnecessary, somehow. Like, why would I need all that stuff in my phone?

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that simply having that capability would create useful scenarios in which I could take advantage of it. Like today, I was in the auto parts store looking for an air filter. What’s the AC Delco part number for the filter I need? Well, the ubiquitous reference book doesn’t cover Delco parts — so let me just grab the iPhone and do a query online. In a few moments, I had the part number I needed. (The store didn’t actually have the part, but that’s a failure of reality, not technology.)

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Some Sanity Restored

By Chief Oddball on October 5th, 2007 at 2:10 am

Filed under Journal ··· 2 Comments

In the last few days, my crushing burden of side work has largely fallen away. In fact, this whole week has wound up being less hectic, more manageable, yet productive at the same time. And, I’ve had the time — and peace of mind — necessary to accomplish a few personal things on my lengthy list of stuff to get done before our big Road Trip to Motown™, scheduled to kick off in just one more week.

Of my two side jobs, one of them is done, and the money is in the bank. (There will be a little more to do once I get back from my trip, but for now, all is well.) On the other, I’ve gotten completely caught up — and while I haven’t heard back from the client about anything else they might need, I’m in no mood to remind them, if you know what I mean. At my day job, things are proceeding on schedule, and the launch of our redesigned website nears. Things are going well, and there’s just enough work to keep my schedule full for the foreseeable future, without going insane.

So, Apple and I have started making plans and doing prep work in the final days leading up to our trip. Last night I changed the oil in GTO, for example. After entering the work in my maintenance log, I had a chuckle at the realization that although the recommended time interval had gone by, there were probably only about 600-700 miles on the oil I disposed of. Oh well — if it weren’t for our little journey northward, I’d have left it in longer…but I like to start a 3,000 round trip on fresh fluids!

I updated the firmware on our Garmin nüvi GPS, then copied about six hours of audio books to its built-in 700 MB of memory. I also entered some “Favorite Locations” into its address book, including my home in Michigan, the Korean restaurant Apple and I always visit up north, and some other locales. The Garmin has a cool feature whereby you can search for food, shopping, lodging, etc. within the vicinity of any city you choose, so I looked for Asian restaurants around my home in Michigan. I couldn’t believe how many results came back — most of them for Thai restaurants, like a place called “Siam Spicy” near one of our favorite shopping malls. Hmmm, it looks like we might have some more restaurants we can try.

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