Another Web App: Ta-Da List

In ETS we use 37 Signals’ project management/tracking application, BaseCamp. It isn’t perfect, but what app really is? What it gives us in an online hub for project tracking and communication. The other thing it gives us a great UI for working with.

37 Signals also has a free list manager called, Ta-Da List that helps people get things done — since GTD is all the rage these days, having access to a very well designed list manager from the iPhone is good thing. I am going to experiment with how well it can handle my daily calendar — again another step to manage, but until I can figure out (or more appropriately, someone who is smarter than I am) how to make our Oracle Calendar work more fluidly with iCal/iPhone I will continue to explore other options. 37 Signals has redesigned Ta-Da List so it is optimized for an iPhone browsing experience … I think we are going to see more of this. Accounts are free, so if you have an iPhone give it a try.

I know it is backwards, but that’s how PhotoBooth shoots it.

iPhone on Two Macs

I didn’t actually try to sync anything, but I did plug my iPhone into my laptop today to charge it and was surprised that it appears as though I can selectively sync content from multiple machines. I’ll have to investigate further, but if that is the case it will make my life a little easier. I keep all my media on my iMac at home and all my contacts and calendars on my MacBook Pro. Right now I am managing all of it by using .Mac to kepp the two machines in sync … that is a step I’d like to eliminate. I will test it more and see what happens.

Web Apps and an iPhone Site

At Apple’s WWDC, Steve Jobs the crowd of developers that to build apps for the iPhone they could use standard web 2.0 technologies — I understood a lot of people were disappointed, but as a former Treo user, I like the fact that I can’t download a bunch of unstable applications to my perfectly running device. I am however very interested in seeing what apps are written that take advantage of the Safari browser on the iPhone.

This morning I read of a new site Apple is offering to browse their extensive movie trailer site. I know it isn’t really an app, but it is one of the first iPhone specifc site I have seen thus far. If you go there with your iPhone you get access to the same content on Apple’s standard trailer site … if you go there with a browser, you get bumped to the traditional URL.

Apple’s iPhone Movie Trailer Site: http://apple.com/trailers/iphone

Managing Media

I am avid iPod user, so I am very familiar with how I can use iTunes to manage media on my iPod and Apple TV (and now, iPhone). I wrote about a lack of advanced feature a while back at one of my other blogs as it related to the Apple TV, but now that I only have 8 GB of space to play with (instead of 80), I’d really like more control. Take for example the fact that I cannot control how many episodes of each TV Show I want …

Some shows I watch over and over when I travel — like old episodes of the Office or Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia. I’d like to be able to choose exactly which ones I want from my collection. Other things, I want just the most recent unwatched episodes and so on … I guess what I am saying is that Apple should give us a way to really manage our media. How about a little checkbox next to each episode and give me the control over how I want my content moved to my device. Now that they are pushing content to smaller devices like my phone, they’ll need to rethink the paradigm just a little bit.

Little Touches

I am settling into using the iPhone for all sorts of things now. A full day into the experience and I am getting very comfortable with the features and how to navigate the interface — I am discovering the usability is even better than I expected … the thing has Apple’s elegant design touches all over the place.

As an example, I set up my voicemail today and was so surprised at just how easy the whole experience is. I am replacing a Treo 650, so you’d think this thing wouldn’t be all that much better than my old smart phone … well, let’s just say that everything is so much clearer on this phone. On my Treo, just finding how to setup and activate voicemail took me way too much time. With the iPhone, you just touch “voicemail” while in the phone interface to get started. The iPhone actually provides real instructions that let you get started … you type in your password twice and then are able to just record your greeting. Want to review it? No problem … you are able to that with a little slider and standard audio controls. Took seconds.

Voicemail itself is amazing … it has “visual voicemail” so you see the person whose call you missed and are able to listen to them as if you are picking up email — in any order. Each message has its own audio controls as well, so if you miss a number or other important information you can just scrub back and listen. The last feature that is so simple, but so effective is a little button that allows you to re-record your greeting. Seems so trivial, but I have no idea how to do that on my Treo, or on my work phone for that matter. If I am going to be away from my phone for a couple of days, just having the ability to instantly update the away message is a life saver.

The total package of the iPhone is the real deal, but as I discover new things I am amazed at how all the little touches are adding up.

iPhone and .Mac

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.

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.