I have seen a lot of talk this past week about if you can or can’t use the iPhone as a solid mobile device for getting “work” done. That’s a very good question and it really depends on what type of business you are in, and what exactly are you trying to accomplish. I often see people lug their laptops pretty much everywhere they go, but is that always necessary? One of my main purposes for purchasing an iPhone was the notion that I could leave the laptop at home and still have some of the functionality I need while away from my desk.
One thing I always find amusing about my iPhone, is that I rarely use it as a phone. Aside from some business calls, and some calls with family, the phone part isn’t used much. It’s all about the data! Now I currently have the 1st generation iPhone with the 2.0 software update, and that update has really made the iPhone even more handy. The 1.xx software was nice, but it was just lacking too many features, and lets not forget the lack of 3rd party apps. The 2.0 update takes care of a lot of those issues, but their is still much work to be done.
E-mail is probably the most used feature for my iPhone. I have about 4 of my main e-mail accounts setup including my new MobileMe address. One of my biggest gripes was there was no simple way to delete multiple e-mails, so I was happy to see that the 2.0 update brings that feature. Reading e-mail on the iPhone is just about as good as reading it on my PC, although I do wish you could type e-mails in landscape mode.
Next up would be mobile blogging. Although this was possible pre-2.0, the recent addition of the WordPress application makes blogging from wherever you are at way more easier. The application still needs some features, but you can do some great posts with it as-is. I also like to upload pictures to services such as Flickr, Facebook and Brightkite which can be done several ways including through e-mail, and iPhone apps.
That’s some of the basic ways I use my iPhone. What do you mainly use your for?
One of the applications I have been waiting for is the WordPress app for the iPhone. Well today it was released and I am actually writing this post with it.
So far it’s working well, and I definitely like the ability to include images with posts.
Since the iPhone 3G launch along with the 2.0 software update, I have seen tons of reviews about the apps that have become available in the App Store in iTunes. While I have about 3 or 4 home screens filled with applications that are very cool and useful, I noticed there are quite a few missing that i would love to see added, and I bet you would you to. Here is my list, and please feel free to add your own.
WordPress. There is no arguing that WordPress is one the top blogging platforms out there today, and a native iPhone app for WordPress is on my top most wanted list. Typepad already has an application released, but the good news is that WordPress is working on one. I haven’t found much information yet, but in a preview video the application makes use of the iPhone camera and photo gallery, and it seems it will make mobile blogging one step easier.
Hahlo. As of right now, Twitterific is pretty much the only (and best) Twitter client for the iPhone. For a while now, I have been using Hahlo on the iPhone, which is a web-based Twitter application. I like the Twitterific app, but it’s still a bit quirky so I hope Hahlo is ready to roll out an app for themselves.
FriendFeed. Of course I had to mention FriendFeed. They have done some great work lately on getting an iPhone compatible website up and running, but hey, we still want a native app here. I haven’t seen any word on this, but I think it’s a safe bet they have something in the works.
Brighkite. Brightkite is one of my new favorite social networks. It’s more location-based which is just begging for some integration with GPS and location based services. The good news that it is in the works! Hopefully, we can see a demo or some screenshots soon.
IM Application. The App Store has an AIM app, but I don’t know anyone who actually uses AIM anymore. A multi-network IM application that would work with services like MSN and Yahoo would definitely be in the top most wanted list. JiveTalk was an excellent web-based IM client, and if they would bring that as a native iPhone app it would be perfect.
Those are my top 5 most wanted iPhone applications, what are yours?
Head over to iBoughtAMac.com and check out my latest review. This time I take a look at Delicious Library 2, which is an application to inventory and catalog collections of items.
If you are interested in trying out MobileMe from Apple next month, then you can do it for a little bit cheaper than the $99 it will cost from Apple. You can pick up a copy of the current .Mac at Amazon for $69. Apple will upgrade every .Mac user to the MobileMe service for free, so with this method you can save $30 off the retail price.
Well today is the day we will finally get confirmation of all the stories and rumors from the past couple of months. Will there be a new iPhone, a MacBook update, .Mac re-branding? The list goes on and on.
For some reason there is no live stream of WWDC keynotes. I’m not sure what the theory is behind this, but it’s annoying to say the least. However, there are some other sources of WWDC news and live blogging, that is about as close to live as you can get. I wanted to list some here for the benefit of anyone who is interested.
Macrumors: Definitely the best coverage with updates from the Macrumorslive.com site where you won’t have to worry about constantly refreshing the page.
Arstechnica: Another great site for coverage with plenty of images to go along with the reporting.
RapidWeaver 4 from RealMacSoftware was finally released today. It’s a free upgrade to users of 3.6, and a discounted price is available to previous users before that.
RapidWeaver is a revolutionary but friendly piece of web design software made exclusively for the Mac. RapidWeaver creates and publishes beautiful, modern sites that are fully compliant with today’s web standards. Once you’ve created your website, RapidWeaver publishes it to an FTP, SFTP or .Mac server quickly and easily.
The update looks great so far, and hopefully I can give a review in the next couple of weeks.
It’s pretty much confirmed that a new iPhone will make its public appearance in the next few weeks. Now all the talk is related to the iPhone supporting 3G, which is great, but there are a lot of people, including myself, who will not upgrade just for that. I would hope that the upgrade shows us a host of new features, not just a network speed boost. So with that I wanted to list some features I would like to see added, aside from 3G.
GPS. The “Locate Me” feature is nice, but it does not compete with true GPS.
Better Camera. A much higher resolution for the iPhone is needed, and it makes such an advanced phone lag behind some others.
Video Recording. That pretty much says it all.
These are my top 3 requests. So how about you, what else would you like to see besides a 3G update?
When I first saw the announcements that Bento was to be released, I was very excited about the potential of it, and was anxiously awaiting the chance to review it. Bento, which is developed by FileMaker, is a personal database application for Mac OS X Leopard. FileMaker is a phenomenal application in itself, but for many people FileMaker is just overkill, especially when it comes to more personal needs. What I needed is an application that will help me organize my contacts, events, projects, inventory, etc., and Bento is all about organization.
The first thing I noticed about Bento is the clean and well designed layout. It’s not cluttered, and offers basically everything you need to get started in a very usable manner. Looking through the source category, I immediately noticed the integration between Bento and Address Book and iCal. All of your iCal events and tasks, along with your contents of the Address Book are easily manageable inside Bento. Any changes you to make to these entries in Bento, will reflect in your Address Book and iCal.
Bento ships with quite a few templates sorted by education, personal, and work. These templates cover a wide range of needs including projects, events, planning, inventory, and more. You also have the option to start with a blank template, and build your own solution from scratch. The pre-made templates are completely customizable, so you can tailor them to your specific needs with ease.
Over the last couple of weeks I have created several different project types, but I wanted to focus on the one that Bento seemed most valuable to me, and that was the ability to create a complete inventory of my home. I started out using the Inventory template, and with about 20 minutes or so of customizing the layout and input fields, it was exactly what I needed. Once you are working inside a form, clicking the customize icon will let you easily modify the current template to your liking both visually and functionality wise. Arranging the layout is as simple as drag and drop, and adding fields like text, currency, media, etc. are setup by entering just a few choices.
I set my inventory form up to have two columns which one contained fields for item description, price, date purchased, serial numbers, and other relevant info. The second column was dedicated to media and notes. The media field allows you to add items like images, audio, video, and even gives the option to take your own pictures and import them directly to your form entry. Since my focus was inventory, I took pictures of my household items, and simply dragged them into the field. I had no problems importing media, but I would love to see an integration with Flickr where I could pull images from there right into a field.
The real difficult part was just adding all the data, but that is one thing that unfortunately Bento can’t do by itself. After a few short hours I had all my inventory data entered, and was very pleased with the final result. The table view inside Bento gives you a quick spreadsheet-like view of your data, which also gives you easy access to sort your data. There is also a summary view that will show your column stats depending on what type of data is entered into that area. For instance, in my “cost” category it can show me the total sum, average, minimum, or maximum data for that column. Don’t worry if you have a bunch of entries either, the iTunes-like search is quick and accurate.
Now I’m at the point where all of my data is entered, I have a good template setup that will make adding additional items easy, so just one more thing to do which is customizing my library. Clicking the customize icon once again, I browse through the over 20 included themes which give you different backgrounds, colors, and text. The included themes are good, but I would like to have the ability to add my own themes as well.
The last feature I wanted to try, and is probably the most important is the backup ability. After all, what’s the point of entering all your data if there is no way to save it to a safe place. To backup your database, or to restore a previously saved one, just select the option from the file menu and save or open the database. It can’t get much simpler than that. I took my backup and placed it on a secure thumb drive for safe keeping. A feature I would like to see here is the ability to password protect the backup directly from Bento.
As I said in the beginning, I was excited about the potential of Bento, and after using it for several weeks, Bento delivers on its mission to offer a powerful, yet simple, database solution for the rest of us. If you need a database solution for your home, or even small business, and don’t need the full power of something like FileMaker Pro, then Bento is the answer.
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