Archive for the 'Mobile' Category

On Paper

Sunday, April 1st, 2012

Quite simply, Paper is the best app I’ve seen in a long time.1 It just turned my iPad from a device I leave at home for email, browsing and playing games to a business tool I want to have with me all the time. Over the last six months I’ve been using paper sketches more…

iPhone Location Services “Stuck On”

Thursday, February 23rd, 2012

For the last few months just about every time I do anything on my iPhone that uses Location Services, I’ve had that icon come on and stay on. I couldn’t get it to go away unless I turned off Location Services entirely; and even then it would come right back as soon as I re-enabled…

iPad, Kindle Fire as Standalone Device

Tuesday, November 22nd, 2011

While the iPad *can* live as a stand-alone machine with iCloud, I still plug mine in every so often to load up photos, etc. As a contrast, the Kindle Fire didn’t even come with a connection cable (just a charger). I guess Amazon is backing up/hosting media in the cloud for me, no idea about…

iMessages on the Desktop

Tuesday, November 15th, 2011

One of the things I love about Google Voice is the way I can receive and send text messages from my phone, iPad and laptop. To borrow from “the best camera is the one that’s with you”, the best device for messaging is the one you’re currently using. It’s blindingly obvious that this sort of…

Share Icon in Android Market

Sunday, November 6th, 2011

Awesome to see Google using the Share Icon in the Android Market app.

Interaction Consistency

Monday, October 24th, 2011

Many people, myself included, blast Android for UI inconsistency; but it’s a problem in iOS too. Here we have two screenshots from the built-in iOS settings screens. In this one, you see a Back button and a Save button in the toolbar. Clicking Save will apply changes, while clicking Back will act as a Cancel…

Clear Out Your iPhone Camera Roll

Tuesday, October 18th, 2011

Since getting my iPhone earlier this year, I’d kept all of of the photos I’d taken in the iPhone’s camera roll. I’d accumulated over 1200 of them. It was handy to have a bunch of photos with me, but there was a cost on several fronts: storage and speed. This past week I’ve completely revamped…

iPhone Tethering on Verizon is now a Plan Change

Thursday, October 13th, 2011

One of the things I’ve liked about Verizon with my Droid and iPhone is the ability to flip on the HotSpot feature via the My Verizon app. I click on Plan Features and turn it on/off. Easy. Last month I made some account changes and added some family members to my plan. I discovered that…

Modernizr.touch and BlackBerry Browsers

Friday, September 16th, 2011

If you’re using Moderinzr to detect browser support for touch events, be aware that non-touch BlackBerry devices claim to support touch events. As you might expect, the touch events are pretty much impossible to trigger on a non-touch device. I worked around this by making the check for touch vs. non-touch browsers also test for…

webOS : HP (Apotheker) :: Newton : Apple (Jobs)

Wednesday, September 14th, 2011

I’ve been a mobile tech junkie for a while now, and watching HP recently kill their webOS devices (effectively, webOS itself) has given me an interesting feeling of deja vu. The situation here has some strong parallels to the plight of the Newton. Both the Newton and webOS were considered to be good technology, with…