joyceanndavis.com

Although I get most of my news from an aggregated set of sources (via Fluent News), one news app I still use occasionally is USA Today. I like their creative snapshot polls, and the ability to see the results overall, for your state, and for your city.

WordPress for iPhone enables you to draft, schedule and post blog entries, including photos. You can also manage comments and create/edit new pages. Not super feature-filled at this point, but I hope they improve it over time. Personally, I’d like to be able to float a photo within text, but I’m weird like that. Oh, and if you tell me to just use HTML, I will indeed have to slap you upside the head.

Well, in a moment of weakness, I broke down and purchased the TomTom application for my iPhone. It’s on sale for $69.99 until December 28th. So far it seems even more wonderful than my previous TomTom device, that I used with my (now ancient) Palm Treo — and I LOVED it! The one thing that makes or breaks a GPS system for me is the quality of the voice (not surprising to those of you who know my audial sensitivity). TomTom is the only system that even comes CLOSE to having a human-sounding voice. “Mandy” is currently my navigator, but as soon as they make “Homer” available, I’ll be downloading him. Doh!

A cool, albeit useless product from Japan…

PuchiPuchi! from Dynamism on Vimeo.

• Computer…….$1000
• iPhone……..$600
• ProShow Gold 3.0…….$90
• ProShow Gold 3.2 Upgrade…….$40
• The ability to carry my parent’s 50th anniversary slide show in my hand……PRICELESS.

During my ProShow Gold 3.2 evaluation period (yesterday), not only was I able to upload a slide show to YouTube with no problem, but also saving a show to my iPhone was a snap. I’m sold.

While trying to resist the urge to upgrade, I did run across a cool Web 2.0 app that allows free video mixing via the web. It seemed to work pretty well actually, so for those who don’t want to shell out the cash, or who are just embarking on the multimedia creation experience, I recommend http://eyespot.com/.

(Photo from www.photodex.com)

Despite my efforts to wait until the second generation of iPhone, I just couldn’t stand it….I bought one. It’s an illness, I know. Hey, at least I wasn’t a one of the people who camped out! I have to say that it has exceeded my expectations in many ways. Yes, it has some room for improvement, but overall, it is an exceptional 1.0 device. Here’s a list of my favorite features:

Favorite Features

1. Sleek interface – You really can’t beat the look and feel of the iPhone interface. It’s nothing less than a work of art.
2. Synchronized Yahoo Contacts – I have used Yahoo Contacts as my primary address book for many, many years. I had tried several times to sync my contacts with my Treo 650, but never had very good results. The iPhone has been terrific so far.
3. Yahoo Mail - It’s awesome to have access to my personal mail at all times…and to be able to send e-mail from wherever I am. Although I was able to do this from my Treo fairly easily too. But now I don’t have to worry about the cost since now I have unlimited data on my plan. The mail is a much richer experience with the iPhone….nice graphics, etc.
4. Google Maps - this is what everyone (including myself) just GAWKS at. To be able to see satellite images from space on a PHONE is just incredible. It would be wonderful to have GPS, but hey, at least my Treo still has a reason for living (so I can use Tom Tom on it).
5. Rich web browsing – this was what sold me in the first place. It’s incredible to get the same net surfing experience on a phone as you get on the computer, complete with graphics and video (with the exception of some javascript).
6. You Tube - really fun. Nice to have “OK, GO!” whenever I want it.
7. iPod - I’ve never owned an iPod, so this is my first experience. I really like it and it’s especially nice to have videos. I even purchased a “This American Life” show yesterday for $1.99 and watched it last night. Really amazing.
8. WiFi – with more and more free wifi hotspots popping up all over the place, I see this being a huge convenience, especially since the EDGE network is rather slow.

And here’s what I want in iPhone 2.0.

Wish List

1. Synchronized Yahoo calendar
2. Fix the Safari browser so that it stops crashing on me
3. Allow for searching in contacts (On my Treo, I liked how I could filter contacts by typing the first few letters of their name.)
4. More native apps! Sure I can play the free Solitaire web app, but it’s SLOW.
5. More ring tones! (although THANK YOU for having Old Phone! It’s my fave.)
6. Improved keyboard. Everyone’s been talking about how the predictive text keyboard is so great, but it doesn’t seem to be predicting very accurately for me. Plus, I have relatively small fingers, and I find typing on the touch screen really hard. I can’t imagine what fat-fingered people do! I’m not a text message sender though, so this isn’t a huge issue for me.
7. Allow iTunes syncing from different computers without full replacement of content.

OK, I admit it. I’m addicted to gadgets. There’s no way around it. I spent an hour and a half watching Steve Jobs’ key note address from Macworld where he announced iPhone. And I must have one…..I’m counting the days until its release (June).

Yes, I’ve been happy with my Palm Treo 650, but I’m sorry….a gorgeous widescreen display with a touch screen and unparalleled graphics capabilities, Google Maps with satellite imaging, Internet browsing with a REAL browser, WiFi, widgets….oh, and an iPod! HELLO?! I knew iPhone was going to be cool, and frankly, I had avoided watching the keynote, because I was going to try very hard to wait until the 2-yr mark of having my Treo (Oct 2007). Plus I thought it would be a good idea to wait for the 2nd generation iPhone so that others can work out the kinks for me. But alas, I got sucked in.

I was innocently checking out my Cingular bill online, when I decided to very lightly click on that iPhone picture to read just a smidgen about the silly thing. (You see, Cingular is the exclusive US provider for iPhone….a sign to me, that I was MEANT to have an iPhone, since I have Cingular service now). The clencher was when I heard that Yahoo! Mail works with iPhone. I’ve had my personal e-mail through Yahoo! forEVER and I love it. Sure, I can send and receive mail from my Treo 650, but it’s not very elegant. You should see mail on iPhone. BEEEEAUTIFUL!

So, just to confirm my theory that am destined to have an iPhone, I went to see when I was eligible for a phone upgrade with Cingular. May 26th….a mere 5 days before Apple’s release of iPhone. See?! It was meant to be!

We had fun at Lakeway Swim Center today. The kids got to swim and I got to play with a relatively new gadget, my Canon SD 550. Even more fun was creating the slide show and adding music using ProShow Gold.
Update: It’s now 18 months later and I’m embedding the video as a test. Let’s see how it works!