Notes syncing between Mail.app and iPhone, finally

I've written several times over the years about the need for Notes to sync automatically between the iPhone and the Mac Mail.app Desktop application.  Well, unbeknownst to me (because I stopped using Notes in Mail.app because of the lack of this feature), in iOS 4.0 Apple has built this in.

I didn't test it right away when the release came out, and just now that I haven't written about it either since they built this in.  But it works.

If you have an IMAP account, you can go into your account settings on your iPhone and turn on "Notes" in that account's preferences.  Mail will create a folder called "Notes" on the IMAP server, and your "Notes" on Mail.app will be sync'ed Over-the-Air with your iPhone.

I have my Mail.app set up like this:



So that all my notes and to-do's stay intact in one account, and not spread apart different accounts.  But there is more than one advantage to MobileMe for this particular feature.  If you set it to MobileMe, Notes are pushed.  (As opposed to pull, as they would be with other IMAP accounts.)

In short, Apple enabled Notes syncing in iOS 4.0.  It works.  Give it a shot.

Facetime

Facetime, Apple’s new iPhone 4 to iPhone 4 video chat application got a bit of an update on Tuesday of this week.

Jobs said it himself, the biggest thing that people wanted when facetime was shown on the iPhone for the first time was the integration of the system into the Mac desktop.  I talked about this back on this original post when the iPhone 4 came out.  Finally, at Tuesday’s speech Jobs and Apple rolled out the Facetime client for the desktop.

It works.

You can call Mac to Mac using Facetime, you can also call Mac to iPhone or iPhone to Mac, likewise with the iPod Touch. The resolution is good (it’s scaled down a bit if you are used to iChat’s resolution), audio is excellent, and it works flawlessly. In fact, when it came out, I was on a hotel network. I tried to initiate an iChat connection to my Dad, and we couldn’t do it for lack of bandwidth, however, Facetime connected right away without a problem.

The only thing that I thought was a bit strange, and I know I'm not the only one, was that Apple released it as a separate application for the Mac.

However, after I thought about it for a bit, I came back to my original conclusion that this is a temporary step. The application is simple and easy to write, so that’s what Apple did. I imagine in order to build the feature into iChat, they'd have to rewrite the whole application, and while they didn’t at all indicate that this was going to happen in 10.7 Lion (which they also started talking about on Tuesday), it makes a lot of sense to have it built into the OS.

One of the other things that i noticed about facetime is that it doesn’t really give you any kind of “presence” notification. For instance, it would make sense that since Apple knows you are connected to the internet via $device, they would be able to provide some type of presence notification along with it, I assume this is going to come with 10.7 too.

iPhone universal inbox?

Julio Rodriguez, a fellow Apple user wrote Steve Jobs an email thanking Apple for their great customer service, and proclaiming his "life-long" customer status.

However, the interesting part for me came in the second paragraph where Julio ask Mr. Jobs:

I just have one question for you; will iPhone ever have a universal mailbox just like Mail has on my Mac?  It would be so much easier and efficient

Steve Jobs answered back in his typically terse answer form:

Yep.

Sent from my iPad

For a screenshot of the email (including headers), check it out here.

Flash, time for you to die

I've been reading a lot of hubbub about the new Apple iPad not having the capability of displaying Flash.  Of course!  It stands to reason that it can't, it has the same OS as the iPhone, which, also can't display Flash.  Which leads me to think, why do we need flash?

Answer is, we don't.  Not anymore.  90% of Flash usage is for audio or video on the Internet and HTML5 can handle <audio> and <video> tags.  It can do Canvas. (Oh and a TON more, I'm just illustrating a point.)  Some of the major browsers have adapted most of these technologies.  Webkit (Invented by Apple, powers Safari, Webkit, and Google Chrome [amongst others], and Presto (The rendering engine that powers Opera) have supported more than the other two majors (Gecko -- The engine that powers Firefox and all of it's kin), and Trident (The engine that powers Internet Explorer).  The last being the worst adopter.  Surprisingly.

I read somewhere (I can't find it now), about most browser crashes come from plugins.  Flash, Java, etc.  Why can't we eliminate these plugins and go with the native protocols?  That's what HTML5 is attempting to do for the most part, and I, for one, am glad for it.

Apple has always been about killing off technologies and moving onto what is on the horizon (killing off serial, going for USB, killing of Diskettes, going to CD, Killing off CD's (Macbook Air), moving more wireless (Airport), Killing off displayport, hdmi, dvi, vga, going with Mini Displayport).  They have never been afraid to just "move on" to the new thing.

I believe they said to Flash, die, HTML5 is here.  Then they turned to web developers and said "fix your stuff".  How did they do that?  Rolled out the iPhone, which has become the largest mobile browsing platform on the planet now.  Slowly and surely, what's happening?  Websites are changing away from Flash.

Unless, you know, of course, you are a band or a restaurant.  (Seriously?  What is with bands and restaurants and your use of Flash?)

I don't even need to get into the security issues of Adobe's Flash.  Look, there is one small part of Adobe working on Flash.  The entire internet is working on HTML5.

Flash (and Silverlight) is dead.  Get over it.

--

100% of the statistics in this post are made up.  ;)

iPad, why it's interesting

Yesterday, as everyone -- including me -- expected, Apple introduced their first big foray into the tablet computing market (if you don't count the iPhone as a tablet) called the iPad.

Which, even I, as an Apple fan, has to admit-- is a stupid name.  iSlate, or even "Tablet" would have been better, but, whatever.  (Plus, Fujitsu owns the "iPad" trademark, so we'll see what it winds up being -- remember "iTV" changed to "Apple TV" at launch.

Am I interested in one?  Yes.  I am interested because it's just enough for me to NOT have to carry around my laptop bag anymore.  Potentially eliminating the need to carry anything outside of a jacket. (Using a jacket like the Scottevest line: http://www.scottevest.com/ -- which is just handy, all those pockets.)  90% of my work could be done a device like this, and I'm just happy about that.

I don't think people are overwhelmed by it right now in this iteration because people feel it's just a big iPod Touch.  Well, fine.  I have to kind of agree with that idea, but look at how far the iPod Touch has come along since it's release.  It's not about the platform people, it's the APPS.  We'll see what happens in 60 days before it's release.  We'll see what happens in a year.

There is going to be a completely different class of Apps developed for this thing.  I fully expect even people like Microsoft to develop a version of Office (or maybe use the online office) for this thing.

Think of the possibilities for a couple markets:

A) Schools.  Imagine school children, colleges, high schools, etc with this thing as a standard issue device.  Think of what is going to come about as far as accessibilities to text books, not having to carry them around anymore.  Think about taking your quizzes and tests online, doing your homework online.  The elimination of the wasteful use of paper is coming in a big way.

B) Medical application.  Think of a doctor being able to walk around a hospital, every patients records, xrays, results, insurance cards, everything.  Accessible with their fingers.  Think about the Doctors being able to make notes right into the patients online chart.

These are just a couple examples I can think of off the top of my head about the possibilities for a device like this.

Security

Now, how should we treat this device from a security perspective?  It's a mobile device, but it's not a phone, it can't make phone calls.  (Native phone calls, not through Skype.)  It's not a laptop, it's more mobile than that.

I would have to say that'd we'd need to treat this device as a phone.  For the most part, it's a platform that has near ubiquitous access to the internet.  Any Starbucks, Barnes and Nobles, etc.  Then with the cheap 3G access available on it, I think there is going to be a whole class of people (maybe the sub-20 year old demographic) that would use this as a computer.  They don't need anything else for the most part.  My wife doesn't need anything more than this device.  Will you be able to print from it?  Probably not, but that's really the only thing I see that needs to be added from a software point of view for this to replace most computers.  My parents would use this instead of regular computer, most people would, if all they did was process email and read web pages on it.

This is the perfect couch device, this is the perfect "train" or "plane" device. There are a ton of possibilities for this thing, not necessarily at launch, but in a year/two years from now, this may be the computing platform that we are all using.

I'm really only disappointed in one thing.  No face forward video camera for teleconferencing?  Hm.  Well, let's think of this thing sitting on your lap.  Ideally the camera would need to be up higher, level with your face, otherwise people on a video conference with you would be looking up your nose the whole time.  Yes of course you could prop it up, but that's not going to happen all the time.  That's really my only disappointment.

We'll see..

iPhone compatability

When I moved to the current theme, I received a couple emails telling me that the theme is hard to read on an iPhone.  So I fixed that.  If you browse to the blog on an iPhone you will now receive a completely different screen and interface, one that is very iPhone compatible, user-friendly, and still allows you to use all the features of the site (commenting, emailing, etc) as you normally would.

So here's what it will look like now when you navigate to the site on an iPhone:

You notice the drop down at the top right of the screen?  This allows you to view the site via RSS, sort by category, even Email me directly from the blog.

If you don't like how the page looks on the iPhone, you can turn this feature off by scrolling down to the bottom of the page and flicking the switch, as seen below:

This is all made possible by the WPtouch theme.  Thanks Wordpress.

Instapaper is so great

I am not sure if Instapaper has apps for anything other than the iPhone, and I kind of doubt, if that exclusivity exists, that it will last any amount of time.

Instapaper is one of those new 2.0 companies that is web/app based. They provide you a free log in to their website, which by the way, by default, had no password. Past this login you get a bookmarklet, similar to the "readbility" bookmarklet I talked about earlier, which, upon use, allows you to turn any article you are reading into a saved article of sorts.

For example, earlier today I was reading an entry on a blog, it was rather long, and I wasn't going to have time to finish reading it as I was about to head out to go to the dentist.

So, with this combination of app/website, I tapped my instapaper bookmarklet, which takes whatever you are reading, and puts it up in the "cloud". Which, provided you then have the Instapaper app on your iPhone, can sync this content down to your mobile device.

Now, whatever article I was reading, just by tapping one button, is now formatted in nice big text on my iPhone, and I can take with me.

I don't know the size limitation of the file you can put on instapaper, I don't know, for instance if you can put a whole book up there or something, but for now, while I am in the dentists waiting room, I have articles to read instead of the weeks old copies of  "Newsweek".

Why don't I use something like Google reader? Well I can, except for those websites that shorten their rss feeds to force clickthroughs. It's another couple steps, who knows how it is going to be formatted, and who knows what kind of connectivity you are going to have.

Which, also by the way, is why I removed the "shortened rss" clickthrough thing for my blog. It annoyed me, so I figured it was probably annoying you.

Some New Apple stuff

Like every other retailer getting ready for the Holiday season this year, Apple, on the back of the biggest Quarter in Apple history, which saw their stock jump almost 10 dollars in one day, announced a few new products into the pipeline yesterday.  Let me just share a couple thoughts on these and then we'll move on to more interesting things.

1.  New iMac's with 21.5" and 27" displays.  While I don't have an iMac, my parents do, and I think it's a great platform.  All that in a 27" form factor is nice.
2.  Magic Mouse, the "world's first multitouch mouse".  Apple did away with the trackball, made the mouse a bit more rectangular (rather than the oval shape of the mighty mouse), got rid of the side buttons, and put multitouch gestures on the mouse.  Two finger swipe, scrolling in 360 degrees with just a finger.  Similar to the trackpad on the laptops.  Pretty cool I guess.
3.  Updated White Macbook.  Made it LED display, locked the battery in, made it "rounder".  (Even though that's not a word).  Now it looks like a true UFO.
4.  Updated Mac Mini, even a version with two 500GB Harddrives and Snow Leopard Server. (This is interesting here!)

Overall, underwhelming, I mean, from the 10,000 foot view, a couple of updates and a new mouse.  Of course I don't know what we expect Apple to come out with now-a-days.  Maybe we expect more from a company that invented the iPod and the iPhone.  I think the Mouse is cool, but the big one for me was the Mac Mini update.

Putting Snow Leopard server on it, as kind of a "home" server type of appliance, that's an interesting play, and I'd like to see what they are going to do with that technology being in the home.  


Please leave comments below.

Some New Apple stuff

Like every other retailer getting ready for the Holiday season this year, Apple, on the back of the biggest Quarter in Apple history, which saw their stock jump almost 10 dollars in one day, announced a few new products into the pipeline yesterday.  Let me just share a couple thoughts on these and then we'll move on to more interesting things.

1.  New iMac's with 21.5" and 27" displays.  While I don't have an iMac, my parents do, and I think it's a great platform.  All that in a 27" form factor is nice.
2.  Magic Mouse, the "world's first multitouch mouse".  Apple did away with the trackball, made the mouse a bit more rectangular (rather than the oval shape of the mighty mouse), got rid of the side buttons, and put multitouch gestures on the mouse.  Two finger swipe, scrolling in 360 degrees with just a finger.  Similar to the trackpad on the laptops.  Pretty cool I guess.
3.  Updated White Macbook.  Made it LED display, locked the battery in, made it "rounder".  (Even though that's not a word).  Now it looks like a true UFO.
4.  Updated Mac Mini, even a version with two 500GB Harddrives and Snow Leopard Server. (This is interesting here!)

Overall, underwhelming, I mean, from the 10,000 foot view, a couple of updates and a new mouse.  Of course I don't know what we expect Apple to come out with now-a-days.  Maybe we expect more from a company that invented the iPod and the iPhone.  I think the Mouse is cool, but the big one for me was the Mac Mini update.

Putting Snow Leopard server on it, as kind of a "home" server type of appliance, that's an interesting play, and I'd like to see what they are going to do with that technology being in the home.  


Please leave comments below.

Rambling on Productivity and Email (Part Two)

Managing To-Dos

As I promised a follow up post to my previous blog post here.

I stated, I try to manage things through Todo lists. When I read an email that I need to take action on, I make a ToDo out of it. Simple to complex, I make a ToDo out of it. Not just emails either. If I am in a meeting and I hear an "action item" for me, I knock that out. If I get a shopping list from my wife, I put that in my Todo list as well.

There are several tools that I have evaluated and used over the years, let me go over a few of these and see if any of them help you. The one that works for me is not the one that may work for you. You have to figure it out for yourself. Make the ToDo list work for you, not you working for your ToDo list. If you find yourself spending most of your time in your ToDo list "managing it" (prioritizing, categorizing, contexting... You are doing it wrong. Managing your ToDo's should not be a ToDo within itself.)

1) Google Tasks

Google Tasks is a built in Task manager into the Gmail interface. It is accessible on the left hand side of your Gmail interface near the labels. (Look for the obvious word "Tasks"). I like this method, it's keyboard accessible, works great, and is accessible from the web.

However, There are two reasons I don't use Google Tasks. First is templates. If I want to make a standard "Group" of tasks. Say, 10 things that I must do with each client, I want to be able to template these 10 things, copy the template and use it over and over for each client. The second reason is, for some reason, right now, Google for Domains doesn't support an iPhone version of tasks. This sucks. It works in the regular Gmail, but not in Google for domains, yet. If you have the luxury of using Gmail for your primary email, I'd suggest checking out Google Tasks. Learn the keyboard shortcuts for it, and you'll whiz through it. Best feature? Being able to create a ToDo related to an email (So you can go to the ToDo and get back to the exact email). Shift-t.

2) Remember the Milk, GTDAgenda, Backpack

All three of these are web based services that you can use for ToDos. I tried several of these, however, most of these require an extra step, or an extra website to log in to and maintain. To me, that's not reducing the amount of work I have to do, that's increasing it. I shouldn't have to increase the amount of things I have to do in order to manage a ToDo list. Each of these has their own merits. I think Remember the Milk is the most extensible. (Meaning it has an iPhone app as well.) GTDAgenda was fairly nice. In the interest of Full Disclosure, I was asked to evaluate GTDAgenda and received a free account. I used it very little because of the above reasons. Backpack is overkill. It's like a Wiki, on crack.

3) Omnifocus

Or OmniOutliner.

This is what I use, it's an OSX only application, but it allows several things that I find vital. The only thing that I don't like about it is that it's a separate app on my system (As opposed to Gmail Tasks, which is built in.) If I have an email (or damn near anything on my computer) I can highlight it with my mouse, and mash a keyboard shortcut (which is customizable) and Omnifocus takes what I have highlighted and makes it a Todo. This is the best.

I am able to assign contexts and projects to everything, assign due dates, make reoccurring tasks... etc.

It also allows me to use templates, as I discussed in Number 1. I can set up a series of tasks, then copy the series of tasks by right clicking and saying "Duplicate".

It allows me to Sync between my computer and my iPhone. Now, the way this takes place is, Omnifocus takes it's DB and puts it up on MobileMe's iDisk. The iPhone, with it's accompanying app then syncs with the DB up on the iDisk. Not a big deal, but it can be a pain to have to keep two in sync. I'd rather just use Google Tasks.

Pain in the butt part? It's expensive. Stupid expensive. It's 79 dollars for the OSX app, and it's another 19.99 for the iPhone app. I think this is bull.

4) Things

This is another program similar to Omnifocus. Simpler to use. (Less complex of an interface), but also, it's 49.95 for the App, plus another 9.99 for the iPhone version. It syncs, but not with MobileMe. Your computer that has the app on the desktop must be on the same Wifi network in order to Sync. That's fairly annoying.

5) ToDo.txt

This is a shell script, basically, that allows you to simply manage ToDos in a simple fashion from the command line. You can barely do contexts and project tagging, but you can't do subordinate projects or anything like that. It's a pretty cool little tool if you are one of those people that likes to manage everything you possible can in a command line. I have several friends like that, and I like to be like that too, but this program just doesn't have enough of the features I need to be able to manage it.

6) Tasks in your email client

Outlook, Thunderbird (with addons), and Mail each have their own ToDo system.

A) Outlooks works like this. You can drag an email over to the right pane (in Office 2007), you can also drag an email down to the "tasks" icon in the left pane at the bottom of the screen. Problem with either one of these solutions is, if you move the mail out of the inbox and into a PST, poof. The ToDo is gone. Seems counter intuitive to me. Anyway...

B) Thunderbird has various plugins for Managing Todos. I didn't put many man hours into investigating the use of the ToDo system within Thunderbird, because I didn't use Thunderbird for more than about five minutes.

C) Mail.app -- This is the only Mail program on OSX that has a ToDo system worth a crap. But even it has it's own problems.

You can create a todo based off an email, highlight the text you want and tap the "Todo" button. Mail will create a Todo based on the email. This Todo is stored in a central db that is shared between Mail.app and iCal. Problem is, as of right now, there is no way to get those ToDos on your iPhone. Come on Apple. Plus Mail.app is dog slow when dealing with 200,000 emails. (And gmails imap implementation sucks)

So, currently I am using Omnifocus until the second best (Google Tasks) comes along. At which point I will probably abandon Omnifocus, even if Google Tasks doesn't allow me to template, I will gladly ditch Omnifocus for a less "sync-y" built in, Cloud managed Task manager. I paid the full retail price for both of the Omnifocus apps (basically totaling about 100 dollars for two apps... to manage Todos. (Seriously Omni Group. The Pricing?)) It's a good pair of programs, but it's a bit overweight and expensive for what its use is.

After my Todos get into my Omnifocus program, I arrange them in two methods.

1) Project

2) Context

If the Todo is work related, I put it under "Work". If the Todo is home related (ex. Get new lightbulb for Microwave), I put it under home. Context is the "Where" portion of the todo.

So if I need to email Dave about that thing we were working on, the Project will be "Work" but the Context will be "Email".

That way, if I have a few minutes, I can take a look at my Todo list under the context "Email" or "Phone" or something, and knock a few of them out. This allows me to fit in ToDos that I have time for. Which will bring me to my next post on productivity, using my Calendar. But that's for another day.

Please leave comments below.

Apple and the Google Voice app, surprise in store?

Awhile back Apple decided it was going to reject the native (as in "non-web-app") app for Google Voice from Google, citing that it "duplicated functionality the iPhone already had". Which, by the way, is against the developers terms of service for developing iPhone apps. Now, I have heard a bunch of blowback against Apple about this, and I'd like to throw my conspiracy theory into it. I'm also writing this in hopes, that basically Leo Laporte from TWiT and MacBreak Weekly see it, and Kevin and Alex from Diggnation see it. As these podcasts have just been going at it saying how Apple is an evil empire. My point is, maybe everything isn't as it seems. (as well as all the other podcasts that have been lambasting Apple since the rejection).

First, if you haven't heard of Google Voice, Google Voice allows you to have one phone number that you give to people and that phone number can be assigned "Back-end" phone numbers that the Google Voice (GV from now on) phone number calls. So, for example, if you call my GV number, it will, depending on who you are, call my home phone, my cell phone, and Gizmo (VOIP Program) all at the same time and I can pick up any one of the three. Furthermore, if you leave a voicemail on my GV number, your voicemail goes through voice to text transcription and gets SMSed and Emailed to me. I use GV for several reasons.

One, I can give it to ANYONE and I can assign what phone number you ring when you call me.

Second, I can give the number to anyone, and I can change my backend phone numbers as well. One phone number for the rest of my life basically. I give you my GV number, and you don't have to worry about what my current cell number is. It's on ME to change it on the backend of GV.

Third, People don't know my actual cell phone number. But there really is no advantage to that.

GV works like this, (well at least on mine), if I get a phone call to my GV number, it rings through to the backend phones. Using minutes. It's not like Skype or Gizmo or anything like that. It's an actual phone call. It's using AT&T's minutes.

When someone sends an SMS to my Google Voice number, it gets sent to my cell phone. Just as if you were sending a text message directly to my cell phone. It costs the same.

There are a lot of conspiracy theorists out there on the internet that think that you can make calls for free, therefore AT&T is preventing the app from getting on the app store. The only reason that I could see AT&T bitching about this is that it would be easier for people to give out the Google Voice number, so at some point users who would switch off of AT&T, since changing the GV number on the backend is trivial, they'd be able to just switch numbers and not take their cell phone number with them. But this argument doesn't even make any sense. Actually it's hard for me to articulate what I am trying to explain as it doesn't make any sense. Since taking your phone number with you to a different carrier is a trivial exercise.

Now, all that being said, I think I've said what everyone on blogs that I read and podcasts that I listen to are saying, so here's my take:

Apple turned the GV app down because it "duplicated iPhone functionality". Which, as I said earlier, is against iPhone Dev agreement. What people aren't remembering is that awhile ago Apple did the same exact thing. Remember?

It was a podcast application. Podcaster. Podcaster was also rejected because it duplicated functionality on the iPhone. (or in iTunes depending upon which article you read). What happened to that application? Well, it disappeared into the sunset, because later, if you remember, Apple gave you the ability to download and play podcasts directly from the iTunes store on the iPhone itself. Yes, AFTER. So Apple has pulled this trick before. Most likely because the functionality to download podcasts via the native iTunes store on the iPhone itself was already in development at the time of the rejection of the app.

So, here's my thought.

If Apple did the same thing to Podcaster that it's doing to Google Voice, then that tells me that in a future release of the iPhone software, the Google Voice functionality will be native. NATIVE. Like, built into the iPhone.

For this to happen, Google and Apple would have to partner up. Much like they did for Google Maps. The team that would develop the iPhone app and the the team on the Google Voice side, quite possibly be on different teams, aside from that, the people involved with working with Apple on the "native" Google Voice functionality would probably be under a very strict NDA. Which is why the developers of the "current" GV wouldn't know that it was being worked on for native functionality inclusion. Apple is famous for it's secrecy. This isn't a stretch of the imagination by any sense of the word.

I have no insider knowledge of the iPhone division of Apple, so I can't verify this.

Imagine this, go to Preferences on the iPhone you log into Google Voice through a Preference, and then, you have a slider. Left for Native iPhone phone number, Right for Google Voice Number. The Google Voice number, of course, acts a little differently as the call has to be sent up to GV for GV to initiate the call and call both parties back. (There are apps that did this in the past, GVMobile is one, which I was smart enough to get a hold of before Apple pulled it from the store.) But what if the iPhone could work it so that you never knew about the "call back" from GV. What if it just looked like a native phone call, it just took a bit longer to connect, and the iPhone just background-auto-accepted the call. You'd never know it. It would act and look like a phone call from the native iPhone number.

SMS would be routed through GV's special SMS connectors so that they would appear to come from you GV number. All the while, you are still being charged "standard text messaging rates" and cell phone minutes from your calls. The only difference in the user experience is, people are seeing your GV number on their caller ID's and that's it.

I'd like to hear your thoughts on this one. Please leave comments below.

Apple and the Google Voice app, surprise in store?

Awhile back Apple decided it was going to reject the native (as in "non-web-app") app for Google Voice from Google, citing that it "duplicated functionality the iPhone already had". Which, by the way, is against the developers terms of service for developing iPhone apps. Now, I have heard a bunch of blowback against Apple about this, and I'd like to throw my conspiracy theory into it. I'm also writing this in hopes, that basically Leo Laporte from TWiT and MacBreak Weekly see it, and Kevin and Alex from Diggnation see it. As these podcasts have just been going at it saying how Apple is an evil empire. My point is, maybe everything isn't as it seems. (as well as all the other podcasts that have been lambasting Apple since the rejection).

First, if you haven't heard of Google Voice, Google Voice allows you to have one phone number that you give to people and that phone number can be assigned "Back-end" phone numbers that the Google Voice (GV from now on) phone number calls. So, for example, if you call my GV number, it will, depending on who you are, call my home phone, my cell phone, and Gizmo (VOIP Program) all at the same time and I can pick up any one of the three. Furthermore, if you leave a voicemail on my GV number, your voicemail goes through voice to text transcription and gets SMSed and Emailed to me. I use GV for several reasons.

One, I can give it to ANYONE and I can assign what phone number you ring when you call me.

Second, I can give the number to anyone, and I can change my backend phone numbers as well. One phone number for the rest of my life basically. I give you my GV number, and you don't have to worry about what my current cell number is. It's on ME to change it on the backend of GV.

Third, People don't know my actual cell phone number. But there really is no advantage to that.

GV works like this, (well at least on mine), if I get a phone call to my GV number, it rings through to the backend phones. Using minutes. It's not like Skype or Gizmo or anything like that. It's an actual phone call. It's using AT&T's minutes.

When someone sends an SMS to my Google Voice number, it gets sent to my cell phone. Just as if you were sending a text message directly to my cell phone. It costs the same.

There are a lot of conspiracy theorists out there on the internet that think that you can make calls for free, therefore AT&T is preventing the app from getting on the app store. The only reason that I could see AT&T bitching about this is that it would be easier for people to give out the Google Voice number, so at some point users who would switch off of AT&T, since changing the GV number on the backend is trivial, they'd be able to just switch numbers and not take their cell phone number with them. But this argument doesn't even make any sense. Actually it's hard for me to articulate what I am trying to explain as it doesn't make any sense. Since taking your phone number with you to a different carrier is a trivial exercise.

Now, all that being said, I think I've said what everyone on blogs that I read and podcasts that I listen to are saying, so here's my take:

Apple turned the GV app down because it "duplicated iPhone functionality". Which, as I said earlier, is against iPhone Dev agreement. What people aren't remembering is that awhile ago Apple did the same exact thing. Remember?

It was a podcast application. Podcaster. Podcaster was also rejected because it duplicated functionality on the iPhone. (or in iTunes depending upon which article you read). What happened to that application? Well, it disappeared into the sunset, because later, if you remember, Apple gave you the ability to download and play podcasts directly from the iTunes store on the iPhone itself. Yes, AFTER. So Apple has pulled this trick before. Most likely because the functionality to download podcasts via the native iTunes store on the iPhone itself was already in development at the time of the rejection of the app.

So, here's my thought.

If Apple did the same thing to Podcaster that it's doing to Google Voice, then that tells me that in a future release of the iPhone software, the Google Voice functionality will be native. NATIVE. Like, built into the iPhone.

For this to happen, Google and Apple would have to partner up. Much like they did for Google Maps. The team that would develop the iPhone app and the the team on the Google Voice side, quite possibly be on different teams, aside from that, the people involved with working with Apple on the "native" Google Voice functionality would probably be under a very strict NDA. Which is why the developers of the "current" GV wouldn't know that it was being worked on for native functionality inclusion. Apple is famous for it's secrecy. This isn't a stretch of the imagination by any sense of the word.

I have no insider knowledge of the iPhone division of Apple, so I can't verify this.

Imagine this, go to Preferences on the iPhone you log into Google Voice through a Preference, and then, you have a slider. Left for Native iPhone phone number, Right for Google Voice Number. The Google Voice number, of course, acts a little differently as the call has to be sent up to GV for GV to initiate the call and call both parties back. (There are apps that did this in the past, GVMobile is one, which I was smart enough to get a hold of before Apple pulled it from the store.) But what if the iPhone could work it so that you never knew about the "call back" from GV. What if it just looked like a native phone call, it just took a bit longer to connect, and the iPhone just background-auto-accepted the call. You'd never know it. It would act and look like a phone call from the native iPhone number.

SMS would be routed through GV's special SMS connectors so that they would appear to come from you GV number. All the while, you are still being charged "standard text messaging rates" and cell phone minutes from your calls. The only difference in the user experience is, people are seeing your GV number on their caller ID's and that's it.

I'd like to hear your thoughts on this one. Please leave comments below.

A tale of Physical Fitness

Quick background -- I used to be in the Army. I joined the Army in 1997, and got out in 2003. In the Army we used to have this thing called a PFT, or Physical Fitness Test.

One of the events in the PFT was a 2 mile run. I was always pretty good at this event, as I am not a huge guy. My best time in the 2 mile run was 10 minutes 26 seconds. A pretty respectable time. But, that was about 8 years ago. I was pretty good at running and ran several 10k's, 5k's and even a marathon. (Honolulu Marathon 2000)

I recently had a friend of mine, who is NOTORIOUS for making outrageous claims, say he could beat me at a marathon. Well, seeing as how this dude weighs about 100 more lbs than me, and is almost a foot taller than me, I KNOW I can beat him. 100 bucks says I can.

So I went out yesterday, got me a new pair of running sneakers (which I haven't had in about 5 years -- not even a new pair, but a pair period) and a Nike+ module for my shoe. (You know, one of those things that goes in your shoe and connects to your iPod Nano and tracks your progress)

I have to say, that's a pretty cool little thing. Now, please keep in mind that I haven't ran AT ALL in about 5 years. Not even to the mailbox. So this morning I woke up, and ran my first two miles.

I'm happy to report that I am still alive. I am also happy to report that I can still pass the 2 mile run on the Army PT test. But I have a long way to go to build up to 26 miles again. (Seeing as how, before the Marathon I ran in 2000, I as 8 years younger and trained by running 10 miles every morning).


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A tale of Physical Fitness

Quick background -- I used to be in the Army. I joined the Army in 1997, and got out in 2003. In the Army we used to have this thing called a PFT, or Physical Fitness Test.

One of the events in the PFT was a 2 mile run. I was always pretty good at this event, as I am not a huge guy. My best time in the 2 mile run was 10 minutes 26 seconds. A pretty respectable time. But, that was about 8 years ago. I was pretty good at running and ran several 10k's, 5k's and even a marathon. (Honolulu Marathon 2000)

I recently had a friend of mine, who is NOTORIOUS for making outrageous claims, say he could beat me at a marathon. Well, seeing as how this dude weighs about 100 more lbs than me, and is almost a foot taller than me, I KNOW I can beat him. 100 bucks says I can.

So I went out yesterday, got me a new pair of running sneakers (which I haven't had in about 5 years -- not even a new pair, but a pair period) and a Nike+ module for my shoe. (You know, one of those things that goes in your shoe and connects to your iPod Nano and tracks your progress)

I have to say, that's a pretty cool little thing. Now, please keep in mind that I haven't ran AT ALL in about 5 years. Not even to the mailbox. So this morning I woke up, and ran my first two miles.

I'm happy to report that I am still alive. I am also happy to report that I can still pass the 2 mile run on the Army PT test. But I have a long way to go to build up to 26 miles again. (Seeing as how, before the Marathon I ran in 2000, I as 8 years younger and trained by running 10 miles every morning).


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Wow, Um, So hey, how you doing?

Haven't Blogged in awhile, I've been working on some other stuff as well over at dearcupertino.com.

For those of you that haven't seen, here's a bit of mac news, Apple released iTunes 8, a new set of iPod Nano's (going back to the more vertical shape), updated and dropped the price on the iPod Touch, as well as refreshing the iPod Classic line.

Basically, for the holiday shopping season. Good stuff.

They also released an update to the iPod Touch software (2.1), and it has some nifty features in it (like the Genius feature from iTunes 8.0). Reports are also, that it is faster. The iPhone update 2.1 is supposed to hit today, so I might blog again with some updates about that.

Otherwise, for those who know me, and know that i have been on a single customer site for the past year+, I have 12 days left (including weekends.)

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What do the freshman know?

Every year, one of these comes out, where a list is posted somewhere on the internet of all the things that the freshman this year will not know, or do know, or will never know.  I always find this list very interesting, kinda puts things in perspective.

Granted I am not that old, but still, I have a kid, and I watch her grow up every day, and it's funny to realize that someday, there will be a generation of children that don't know what music stores are (like, going to the store to buy a CD), kids never knew what it was like to have to carry around a "walkman" (like a cassette, or a cd).  They will never know what the "command line" is.  Or having to switch disks to boot a computer and things like that.

Here is this year's list.

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What do the freshman know?

Every year, one of these comes out, where a list is posted somewhere on the internet of all the things that the freshman this year will not know, or do know, or will never know.  I always find this list very interesting, kinda puts things in perspective.

Granted I am not that old, but still, I have a kid, and I watch her grow up every day, and it's funny to realize that someday, there will be a generation of children that don't know what music stores are (like, going to the store to buy a CD), kids never knew what it was like to have to carry around a "walkman" (like a cassette, or a cd).  They will never know what the "command line" is.  Or having to switch disks to boot a computer and things like that.

Here is this year's list.

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iPhone 3G review

Okay, so I have had my iPhone 3G with iPhone 2.0 software for a solid week now.  

BLUF:  I like it.

Now, I live in a 3G area.  Which means I get the full capabilities of the speed, and it's nice.  Browsing the internet is faster, Mail is faster, everything is nice and quick.  Even the apps I use.  The truth is, I was considering not getting one, but the touchscreen stopped working on my old iPhone about a month ago, and therefore, I had to upgrade (oh darn).

iPhone 2.0 software

--

This is the greatest feature about the new iPhone (and the old iPhone too) is the apps.  Now that you can have apps, it's awesome.  I hacked my phone in the past but there were no apps that I was excited about and I really didn't care to do it again.  There were really three apps I wanted on my old iPhones software.  

1) something to manage my to-do's

2) some kind of music buying app

3) Instant messenger.

Well, now I have Omnifocus for the iPhone (and the mac, and it's great, everything syncs up..  awesome.  Although I do have to call Omnigroup out on something.  They say that their databases sync via "MobileMe".  Now, if I said that to you, that would imply you have to-do syncing through the cloud right?  Well, not really.  All that happens is your Omnifocus DB is stored on your iDisk, and your devices have to sync to iDisk, so while technically true, it's ill worded...anyway..  Omnifocus is great, I recommend it, little high in price, but... yeah)  So that takes care of my to-do's.

2)  Some kind of music buying app.  Well iPhone has had the iTunes store for a while, and it has been great.  But there are occasions that you didn't know what the song was that you heard on the radio and you wanted to know.  Well now my iPhone has an app called Shazam, that will listen to the song I am listening to and tell me what the song is.  Awesome.

3)  Instant Messenger, well I got my AOL IM, but it's just not as polished as I think it should be.  It should be iChat'ish.  Come on Apple, do your thing.

Of course I have some other apps on there as well, games, facebook, pownce, twitter..etc..  and I use them, but they are just add ons.  Not must haves.

The GPS is awesome, quick too.  While it doesn't TELL you where to make turns, it WILL follow where you are at on Google Maps, and you can just get your directions through there.  So it works just fine for a GPS phone.  I'd like to replace my Car GPS with the iPhone, which requires two things.  A touch bit better GPS turn-by-turn software, say from Tom-Tom or Garmin, and a Car Charger.  No car charger yet.  Let's go!

All in all..  Excellent phone, I highly recommend it for people who live in a 3G area.  If you don't live in a 3G area, then don't worry about it, because the speed won't help you.  Get your software update.  

However if you live in a 3G area, or you like the 'flush headset jack' idea, or the fact that it fits better in your hand (with the rounded back), then get it.  The iPhone 3G FEELS thinner.  But in fact it's a 0.2 mm thicker in the middle.  But you probably won't notice.

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iPhone 3G review

Okay, so I have had my iPhone 3G with iPhone 2.0 software for a solid week now.  

BLUF:  I like it.

Now, I live in a 3G area.  Which means I get the full capabilities of the speed, and it's nice.  Browsing the internet is faster, Mail is faster, everything is nice and quick.  Even the apps I use.  The truth is, I was considering not getting one, but the touchscreen stopped working on my old iPhone about a month ago, and therefore, I had to upgrade (oh darn).

iPhone 2.0 software

--

This is the greatest feature about the new iPhone (and the old iPhone too) is the apps.  Now that you can have apps, it's awesome.  I hacked my phone in the past but there were no apps that I was excited about and I really didn't care to do it again.  There were really three apps I wanted on my old iPhones software.  

1) something to manage my to-do's

2) some kind of music buying app

3) Instant messenger.

Well, now I have Omnifocus for the iPhone (and the mac, and it's great, everything syncs up..  awesome.  Although I do have to call Omnigroup out on something.  They say that their databases sync via "MobileMe".  Now, if I said that to you, that would imply you have to-do syncing through the cloud right?  Well, not really.  All that happens is your Omnifocus DB is stored on your iDisk, and your devices have to sync to iDisk, so while technically true, it's ill worded...anyway..  Omnifocus is great, I recommend it, little high in price, but... yeah)  So that takes care of my to-do's.

2)  Some kind of music buying app.  Well iPhone has had the iTunes store for a while, and it has been great.  But there are occasions that you didn't know what the song was that you heard on the radio and you wanted to know.  Well now my iPhone has an app called Shazam, that will listen to the song I am listening to and tell me what the song is.  Awesome.

3)  Instant Messenger, well I got my AOL IM, but it's just not as polished as I think it should be.  It should be iChat'ish.  Come on Apple, do your thing.

Of course I have some other apps on there as well, games, facebook, pownce, twitter..etc..  and I use them, but they are just add ons.  Not must haves.

The GPS is awesome, quick too.  While it doesn't TELL you where to make turns, it WILL follow where you are at on Google Maps, and you can just get your directions through there.  So it works just fine for a GPS phone.  I'd like to replace my Car GPS with the iPhone, which requires two things.  A touch bit better GPS turn-by-turn software, say from Tom-Tom or Garmin, and a Car Charger.  No car charger yet.  Let's go!

All in all..  Excellent phone, I highly recommend it for people who live in a 3G area.  If you don't live in a 3G area, then don't worry about it, because the speed won't help you.  Get your software update.  

However if you live in a 3G area, or you like the 'flush headset jack' idea, or the fact that it fits better in your hand (with the rounded back), then get it.  The iPhone 3G FEELS thinner.  But in fact it's a 0.2 mm thicker in the middle.  But you probably won't notice.

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iPhone 3G

Yes, I have an iPhone 3G.  (Yes I live in a 3G accessible area.)

So far I think it's absolutely great.  But I'll post a longer review after I've used it for a couple days.  I think I am more excited about iPhone 2.0 more than the 3G phone itself.  MobileMe ftw.

I posted a picture of me taking a picture of my old iPhone with my new iPhone 3G, and using the new pownce app to upload it to the internet.

www.pownce.com/joelesler

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