I am finding my .Mac account has some serious features that are keeping me happy with the syncing going on with my iPhone. I use a MacBook Pro for work … it has my bookmarks, calendars, and contacts dialed in on it. I keep all my media on an iMac in my home office … I haven’t tried syncing between two machines, but the .Mac sync features allows me to easily keep my laptop and desktop in step with one another. I sync the iPhone and my iPod on the iMac, so having a way to easily move the right calendar, contacts, and bookmarks via .Mac is proving very effective.
Month: June 2007
iPhoto
So I took a picture with the iPhone’s built in camera … nice enough. I can then use that picture as my wallpaper, assign it to contacts, or instantly email it to anyone or post it directly to Flickr. What surprised me was how when I then docked my iPhone it opened iPhoto and asked to import the picture. Worked like a charm. I like good surprises … it was always a pain to get pictures off my Treo and into my Mac quickly and easily. Now it seems this device is designed to really play nicely across Mac OSX.
iPhone Blog
I am blogging about my experiences with Apple’s iPhone over at my PSU iPhone blog. I’ll be posting iPhone stuff there almost exclusively. I have dropped in the feed2js code into the iPhone Thoughts page linked above so it pulls it over here.
Webaccess Works
It was actually really easy to use the Blogs at PSU toolset from the iPhone. Typing is proving to be a little easier than I imagined as well! I am noticing that every time you leave the browser and return, you need to authenticate via webaccess — I guess that is a good thing for a lot of reasons, but what a pain.
I used the Safari browser to go to cal.psu.edu and my calendar looks great … I double tap the screen and I can see all the detail I need. I am worried that the lack of true calendar integration will be hard on me … using the web view is an option, but it feels way too slow and way too many clicks. I am going to work at the export to iCal and sync with the iPhone deal next. Getting data in and out of Oracle quickly and into iCal is my overall goal.
Posting from my iPhone
Typing is a little slow, but not too bad. I was able to just log into webaccess and make this post via the iPhone … Nothing short of amazing!
iPhone Fever
So I’ve been out of the blog limelight (if that’s what you can call it) for over a week now … I have been writing, just not much and not here at all. Work has been crazy, travel has been crazy, and the iPhone hype has been crazy. On the work front we are running as fast as we can to launch the first five Digital Commons Studios, hire new staff for projects, and finalize plans for what will be an outrageously busy and exciting year. The Digital Commons project itself has moved faster than anything I have been a part of since the start-up days — really spinning the whole project up over the last few weeks … who says we move slow in higher education?
On the travel side, we’ve been back and forth to Bloomsburg, PA the last couple of weekends for lead up events to my sister’s wedding. While there last weekend I got to play a little golf — actually 36 holes — with my Dad and some friends. I can’t tell you how much I needed that. Last Friday I had a very bad day professionally … one that really took the winds out of my sails … crazy thing is it started with a call I got as I was getting on my bike to ride to work from one of my best friends in the world. He and his wife had their first child, a little girl. Wonderful news! The wonder of that news was instantly crushed by the reality that his Mother is close to the end of her fight with cancer. I stopped in to see her while out on a walk with my 9 month old son … every time we go to Bloomsburg I try to find the time to stop in and see her … it is heart wrenching knowing that my friend of 25 or so years is trying to resolve feelings that I can’t even imagine — the birth of a little girl who shares his dying Mother’s name.
I feel like an idiot even mentioning the fact that the iPhone comes out today and I will be lining up somewhere to see if I can get one. I mentioned I have been writing elsewhere, well I started an iPhone blog to share my thoughts on the device for a research project I am a part of here at PSU. Several of us are investigating the way the iPhone plays in our enterprise and how we can see its value in education. Hard part is just getting one — I’m a little too busy (and perhaps, normal) to feel good about standing in line for days or even hours. I’ll see what I can do, but I am obviously thinking about it as I have had dreams about the damn thing the past two nights. If I get one, I will share thoughts here and over at my iPhone PSU Blog.
Sorry for the mad recap, but that’s what has been up.
iPhone and Accessibility
I received an email from a colleague today asking about the accessibility — or perceived lack thereof — of the iPhone. Sparked some thinking and thought I’d share it here:
I thought I ask the following question I posted on the Illinois Board of Higher Education (IBHE) Accessibility list:
Can anyone point me to any discussion on the accessibility of the Apple iPhone? Inevitably, the iPhone might make it into teaching and learning activities, and I cannot imagine how it could be used by vision-impaired individuals, for example.
I may be a bit harsh on Apple, but it seems to me that Apple is not interested in making some of its latest technology available to people with disabilities.
Is iPhone (in)accessibility being discussed anywhere? I think, we should discuss it.
Interesting and important stuff. We need to understand how this thing will play in our environments. Many users have distinct disabilities that a device like this may ignore. Still many more questions than answers.
VPN
I visited Apple back in March and got a tour of the iPhone. One of the big questions I had revolved around VPN. I was told the iPhone did have a native VPN and managed the hand off between wifi, cell, and protected wifi very well. This morning I saw on a Mac rumors site information that the iPhone does indeed have the OSX native version of VPN. Have we ever tested OSX’s VPN software? We will need to do that and look at what the settings should be.