Kindling the iPhone

For those of you who think that headline means I finally tossed Gigi-the-iPhone on the fire: Nope.

Actually, Gigi and I have gotten along pretty well in the last six weeks. She’s finally resigned herself to living with a peasant, and I’ve learned that she can be a pretty good phone…as long as I don’t try to use her 3G network. The only time she drops calls now is when I turn the daggone 3G back on. (If there’s a more perfect example than AT&T of why you shouldn’t sell a technology before you get it right, I don’t know what it would be.)

In fact, Gigi and I have been visiting that irresistible money magnet, the iPhone apps store, and trying things out. And I’ve discovered a natural rating system of sorts for the apps I try: Gigi presents apps in groups of 16 per page, and you can move app icons to any page you like. I’ve got five pages of the little buggers, pretty much arranged from most-used to least. Anything that makes Gigi’s first page is pretty darn indispensible. Anything on page five is about to be blitzed off the phone.

Amazon’s Kindle app (Amazon.com, free) has made it to page two.

Now, I’ve just not seen the sense in buying a Kindle. I mean, even a first-class gadget freak has to draw the line SOMEwhere. In Gigi, I’ve consolidated phone, pager, email, browser and all kinds of other gadgets I used to carry and my purse is about four pounds lighter. Why the heck would I want to add stuff back?

Besides, Gigi offers apps like Stanza, which lets you read just about any book or magazine in the public domain. It’s not great–no real illustrations, the interface is a tad clumsy–but it works.

But when Kindle came out for iPhone this week, I just had to try it. And I gotta admit, I kinda like it. It’s not–repeat NOT–the same as reading a book,. But if the book’s good enough, I could be reading it on a roll of toilet paper and I’d still love it.

You download the app, register with your Amazon.com username and password, and you’re automatically connected to your Amazon.com account. Buy a Kindle book, and it automagically shows up as an available download on your iPhone the next time you open the app.

(And, btw, here’s a fairly significant difference between the app and the Kindle: I’m told you can acquire books directly on the Kindle. The iPhone app only supports reading them; you still must buy them using a regular computer.)

I downloaded Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book ($9.99–the paper version is a couple bucks more) and gave it a shot. Text was easy to read, the illustrations were there, and the interface was very iPhone: A fingerswish moves you from page to page, you can easily select different text sizes and the “book” always opens to your last-read page. If you move about, you can resynch to the furthest page read. (BTW, TGB just won a Newberry Award, well-deserved. If you haven’t read it yet, you should.)

So…tell me again why I should buy a Kindle?

Loopt (free). Loopt has barely made it to page five and I probably won’t keep it. The Loopt app uses GPS and text messaging to do a geosynched kind of Twitter. Anyone connected with you can see where you are and, to some extent, what you’re doing. They can share geotagged photos, give you directions to places they’d like you to try, etc.

I’m all for presence detection, i.e., using applications such as instant messaging to learn when a person is (or isn’t) available to take a phone call, email, etc. But Loopt is kinda scary. The default privacy level on this app is essentially zero, and figuring out how to restrict others’ access can be challenging.

To use Loopt you must enter a bit more personal information into the app than I’m comfortable with. Besides, it works from your address book to match up with other potential Loopt members (and also to invite them to join–gee, isn’t that what malware does?).

Anybody with a significant online life (say, someone who, er, blogs a lot and has accounts on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and heaven knows where else) knows that privacy is an illusion and has made some measure of peace with that. That doesn’t mean, though, that I want folk checking to see if I’m out of the bathroom yet.

I suppose that kicks me up a notch on the fuddy-duddy scale, but too bad.

Facebook (free). I’ve also installed the iPhone version of Facebook which has, to my surprise, made it to page one. It’s a useful little precis of what’s going on with your Facebook friends and, aside from the iPhone’s lousy keyboard, is pretty easy to use.

(BTW, if you’re on Facebook, come find me; I’m gathering a nice network of glassists and techists and they’re fun)

BBC World News (free) kicked the New York Times newsreader out of its page one spot last week, mostly due to its broader news focus and slightly faster performance. It’s a quick, fast update that also gives you access to “World, Have Your Say,” which has to be one of the most fascinating radio programs on air.

MagicPad ($3.99), one of the the first rich text editors for the iPhone, also moved to page one. It lets you cut and paste text from one application to another, something that’s been sadly lacking in the iPhone, and also allows you some rudimentary formatting such as changing fonts and text color. Using it can be an exercise in frustration until you understand how the gestures work with the editor, but once you get the hang of it, it’s quite useful.

Been playing around with more apps, including FacePhone ($2.99), which matches up your address book and your FaceBook friends, iStethoscope (free), a heart monitor and sound amplifier for iPhone that so far hasn’t so much as found my pulse, and Pinger, which lets you send text messages for free and integrates your social and instant messaging accounts into a single place.

So far, only Pinger looks like it’ll make it off page five, but I’ll keep you posted…

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HAPPY SQUARE ROOT DAY!!!!!

Oooh. Oooh. I almost missed it!

Thanks to the lovely chaniarts for pointing this out: It’s Square Root Day! (Lest you think I had it on my calendar and simply forgot, I didn’t–I hadda go look it up).

But this is cool: March 3, 2009, or 3/3/09 is one of the few times in the century that the month and day are the perfect square of the year, i.e., 3*3=9.

The first announcement of this was made by a math teacher in the Bay area on September 9, 1981 (9*9=81) and has become something of a tradition among those with a great love of numbers or possibly nothing better to do.

I wonder how come there isn’t a Cube Root Day, say, on 3/3/2027?

Me, I’m going to go dump some roots into my square dishes and have lunch. Now, how many of you are ready for Pi Day festivities?

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Happy New(ish) Year!

So….2008 lasted a second too long* and now, at last, it’s 2009. Thank heavens.

I’m not saying that 2008 was a bad year–I don’t believe in such things–but I doubt that history books will do much raving about its fabulosity, either. Maybe I should say it’s been an interesting year.

World-wise, this appears to be a great time to be alive…if you’re into poverty, armed conflict and disease. Lots and lots and lots of bright lights up ahead, of course, and I’ll be very interested to see if we actually flipped US leadership on its head enough to really change anything. My heart says yes, my head says “you’ve gotta be kidding,” so we’ll see who’s right.

Professionally, got back to my roots a bit, met a lot of nice and extremely competent people, and learned an amazing amount about everything from running a really varied marcomm program to integrating social/e-commerce/blog/mobile websites. I even got to step into the breech and do a bunch of photography–my images are being used in international ads!!!–which is an unexpected first.

I’m still not sure of the next step, particularly with this economy, but I’m learning to relax and enjoy the journey. Considering that my friend Jan once said she could sum up my personality in nine words–”I want it now and I want it delivered!”–that’s saying quite a bit.

Personally, on the plus side I’m happy with the direction of my art, and I got to do a LOT of artsy stuff. I attended my first Glass Art Society conference (and had a ball), I made lots of new glass artist friends, put friendly faces to a lot of folks I only knew from online, and cemented old friendships. I renewed my love of casting, I figured out that I was a gen-u-wine sculptor and got validation in that from several unexpected sources, and my old friend pate de verre and I got tighter than ever. I finally broke through my own personal color barrier and found out that my heartwork actually sells pretty well…if I can bear to part with it.

Happily, I kept two important 2008 resolutions:

• I marched into the glass, photography and sculpture communities and got involved, and I submitted both sculpture and photography to multiple exhibit venues–did surprisingly well.
• I promised to write at least one significant piece for each week of 2008 and I’ve kept that promise. The payoff: My writing muscles are staying well and truly lubed and my brain is in the groove.

But probably best of all, in 2008 I got to really wallow in this whole friends-and-family thing. I haven’t had so many loved ones this geographically (or virtually) close since college, and the more I have it, the more of it I want. Thanks to all of you for just being there.

In the true spirit of procrastination, I haven’t come up with a whole lot of resolutions for 2009. Maybe I will…or maybe I’ll just play the whole year by ear.

Happy New Year, folks!

————

*Powers-that-be needed to correct a “leap second” problem and so the last minute of 2008 had 61 seconds, not the usual 60. I’m tempted to say something snide about how they just had to prolong the agony, but I won’t…

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Semiliterati

Illiteracy on the Web simply drives me nuts. Dig this headline:

Caroline’s Pad Put’s Hillary’s to Shame

Wince.

I happily concede that knowing how to write (or spell) isn’t a prerequisite for posting content on the Web. If it were, the total number of blogs would be closer to 184, not the 184 million that agency McCann claims.

Unfortunately, however, that little gem of a headline is posted on MSNBC, i.e., major media, a place that pays people to know how to write. Even more unfortunately, there’s plenty more where that came from.

For example, check out this LA Times “story” of the most overrated vacation spots on earth. The criteria for getting on this list of shame seems to be that someone, somewhere, once wrote to the travel editor and complained. For example, Lima is hell on earth because its art museum was closed,  Monterey Bay is a ripoff because the weather was overcast, Athens is terrible because the disco played Greek pop tunes and Reykjavik sucks because the guy’s silk underwear slid all over the horse and chafed him terribly.

Wow. Those are certainly the criteria I’d use. Not.

You gotta wonder if anybody from the editor’s desk actually reads this stuff. Doubtful, given the editorial budget-cutting that’s going on. The Kennedy story is most likely coming from a newsfeed that automatically barfs content into its proper positions, untouched by human hands. The LAT idiocy probably stemmed from unfilled space, an eager intern with some pretty travel shots and no time for oversight.

In the overall scheme of things, a few typos, or a really dumb (and rather unjust) story or three aren’t going to break the bank. But has anyone considered the corollary? If major media can’t spend the money to make sure things are spelled accurately, what does that say about the accuracy of their facts?

Scary.

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Mobile marketing on steroids

Anybody out there tried SnapTell for the iPhone? It’s, variously, a powerful, scary or just plain freakin’ cool new tool, available free on iTunes.

SnapTell helps you find the best price for a book, CD or DVD you’re interested in buying. You use the iPhone camera to snap the cover, then SnapTell identifies the title from its database. It will deliver reviews and a rundown on prices, new and used, from the nearest local stores, Google, Barnes & Noble, eBay and Yahoo. It lets you comparison shop while you’re actually standing in the store, and–assuming it can get to the data, which is a BIG assumption–could be a boon to students trying to save money on textbooks, for example.

I tried out the SnapTell app on a few books and DVDs. As long as I was snaptelling stuff with a valid ISBN/ASIN number it seemed to work reasonably well.

It can’t do the impossible. A snaptell of corporate distributions, such as Bullseye Glass’ Connections video, generally returns a “No match found” error message or it picks the closest match in its database, which can be fun. One of Philippe Faraut’s excellent sculpting tutorials, The Art of Sculpting: Children (left), came back listed as Budapest at Night, a CD of Hungarian music by Sandor Lakatos and his Gypsy Band (right).

I can see the probable landmarks that SnapTell established between the two (the square photo, arch of the sculpture’s head, the bangs and the left temple, the neckline, etc). Corning’s latest DVD, Glass Masters at Work: Lino Tagliapietra, a documentary by Robin Lehman, shows up in SnapTell as a $400 textbook, Linear Motion Electromagnetic Devices for similar reasons. Still, those are mile-wide misses that demonstrate the problems inherent in relying on image matching alone.

If I need to compare prices on, say, the English version of Princess Mononoke, it could really come in handy. And it will also save time; I can snaptell an entry to a friend looking for a particular book much faster than I can type in how/why buy info on Gigi-the-iPhone’s lousy screenboard.

Of course, behind the noble purpose–saving money–lies clever marketeering. SnapTell comes from SnapTell, a SilliValley mobile marketing firm that’s using image matching and mobile phone cameras to drive marketing campaigns. Mobile cameraphone users snap photos of ads and products to learn more about them, and participating companies deliver the info along with messaging and branding reinforcement.

For companies, it’s a potentially very effective way to reach the mobile demographics, especially since anyone going to the trouble to take a picture of an ad is already at least partially sold. For users, it’s a fast way to get more information, coupons, freebies, etc., without touching a desktop PC. And since it’s inherently opt-in, it’s far more welcome (presumably) than mobile spam.

The downside for users, however, is the usual: Signing up is forever, and once a company has you in its database as interested, it’s up to THEM to stop. And there’s another con: Since SnapTell isn’t in the game for philanthropy, presumably whoever shows up on the SnapTell bookstore list is either a free resource or has paid to be there. No pay, no show.

That’s probably why the two most obvious book resources I use, Amazon.com and the local Powell’s, were nowhere to be found. Since I’ve no intention of downloading an app for every establishment I buy might something from, and since my consumer info is a valuable marketing currency, SnapTell is either gonna have to sell everybody or figure out how to provide comprehensive info and still make money. Google did it–let’s see what SnapTell comes up with.

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Rant: iPhone, AT&T and UNusability

Every once in awhile I stumble upon a masterpiece of unusability that I just can’t resist ranting about. In this case, it’s AT&T’s implementation of text message pics. Truly, you gotta see this to believe it.

The whole entire rest of the texting world takes a pic with the phone camera and blips it to a buddy in about 10 secs. Buddy gets pic, saves it or does whatever to it, world is good, little thought required.

Now here’s how you do it if the recipient has an iPhone:

1. [Read more]

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Mood=good

Judging from the condition of my “rest bucket” (where the dirty plasterwater from moldmaking waits until the plaster settles out and can be discarded), I’m going to be resting at home for awhile…

Let’s see:

• It’s 28 degrees outside, snowing, icy and and the wind is howling
• I’m snow-/icebound (and given the weather report, that’s probably for the next few days)
• The birthday party I was going to tonight has been canceled
• I’ve got to figure out year-end taxes today or there will be hell to pay
• The kiln may or may not be broken
• Somebody smashed my car yesterday

And I’m happy as a clam. I kid you not.

[Read more]

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Embrace your inner fuddy-duddy

Colleague and I got into a discussion of Annie Leibovitz’ new book, Annie Leibovitz at Work.

If you haven’t read it, you should. It’s both an excellent inspiration for the portrait photographer and a powerful pictorial history of the last 40 years. I’m not always a fan of “behind the scenes with photographer X” books, but first of all, this is Annie Leibovitz we’re talking about, not Joe-I-once-shot-some-celebrities-Jones. Second, the photos are just plain damn fabulous. Third, she’s pretty forthcoming both about the philosophy of her shooting as well as pertinent technical details, which makes me want to grab some faces and start shooting pixels.

Anyway, since Leibovitz is on my top ten photographers of all time list (and possibly also the top five), I pretty much devoured the book…and was kinda brought up short by the rather extensive digital manipulation of Leibovitz’ later shots, particularly her work at Vogue. She’d shoot actors at different times (and sometimes in different cities), then have her digital techs seamlessly stitch the images together and fill in the gaps with still other images, so that Judy Dench appears to be driving at night with a very unhappy Helen Mirren when in reality they were photographed in separate sessions.

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Best iPhone apps, continued

Gigi-the-iPhone is a goofy little beast. As I’ve said ad nauseum, I’m willing to put up with her crummy phone service because she’s taken over so many other tasks. And what gets her there are the apps.

If you’re using a barebones iPhone, i.e., only the apps that came in the box, you’re operating at about half-strength on the utility scale.

If you’re not sure how to add apps to your iPhone (you can do it directly from the iPhone by tapping on the Apps icon, or through iTunes on your computer), Apple has a pretty good tutorial on their apps site.

[Read more]

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Wordsplosion

I’ve got a real thing about words (surprise, surprise), and Wordsplosion has had me doing the ROTFL thing for the last half hour or so. Definitely worth a visit.

BTW, the photo above is my own Wordsplosion-style entry. Mom and I saw it at an airport on our way back to DC for a wedding.

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