A Simple Way To Go Faster Than Light That Does Not Work

Gruber's right; this demo video for the new iPhone Twitter-posting app Birdhouse is a model of its class, and is required viewing for everyone who might ever need to make a demo video of anything. Even if they hate Twitter.


(Yes, I am likely to drop the $4 on this, since I have been Twittering a lot lately, and feeling like I'm just starting to get the hang of making tweets more clever than the mm-bacon-time-to-wash-my-socks category. Something like this might be useful.)

I just discovered (after wondering "Gee I wonder if...") that you can add multiple cities to the Weather app that ships with the iPhone, and flick between them at will with the usual touch gestures. This suddenly transforms it from a cute and marginally useful gewgaw into a slick little travel-planning aid. Nifty.

For some reason it never occurred to me to try using my iPhone's iPod app without headphones plugged in. I was momentarily mystified this morning when I didn't plug em in all the way, making my Tuesday-morning dose of Dan Savage play out of the device in my hand rather than into my ears.

I have wished in the past that I could sometimes listen to podcasts without having to wear headphones (or be seated in front of my desktop Mac), so this is pretty cool.

My evidence is only based on my own eyeballs, but I have many days of data now: Shutting off my iPhone's 3G access, using the legacy Edge data network instead, consistently reduces its idle-state battery drain by a lot. I'd say well over fifty percent.

I'm instituting a new personal policy of leaving it on Edge, except for those rare times when I'm not near a friendly WiFi point and need a high-speed internet connection. I recommend this practice to all my fellow iPhonophiles.

This is a minor bummer since the control to toggle Edge/3G is buried deep in the iPhone software control panel, requiring several taps and slides each time. But I choose that annoyance over the greater one of the phone begging for more juice well before my own bedtime, every day. With this new method, an overnight charge every other night keeps it full and happy.

The day after I complained about 3g not working, my phone's Edge connection started to work OK, so for the first time I let it run in Edge-only mode for a couple of days.

Holy cow: I didn't know that 3g affected battery life _that_ much. My phone can now go two full days without a recharge. Time was, the battery was completely dry after 15 hours of casual use.

It's noticably slower this way too, but... I think I'll leave it like this for a while.

Edit: Shozu fail! It let me type in my tags and a "geotag", and it appears to have posted neither, but it did feel free to replace both with a binky little banner-ad for itself. Get offa my phone, you pantload.

Abigail
Can you feel my heart in the palm of your hand
And do you understand
Why I can't --

That is about how long it takes for me to go back to the home screen, tap the 'iPod' button, tap 'Playlists', tap '!Recent Podcasts', and then tap the title of the show I was listening to, after I squeeze the iPhone's mic-clicker to resume play, and it decides to start playing the alphabetically first song it knows instead.

From the this is what it's all about files:

While standing in line, I wanted to talk to classicaljunkie, but she wasn't in a position to take phone calls, and I wanted more interactivity (and less cost) than SMS. So I hopped onto the iTunes App Store, downloaded and installed Google Mobile, and a moment later was yakking at her over GTalk. I did all this before shuffling forward a place in line.

I note this less as praise for Google and more as astonishment that I have a mobile device whose functionality I can alter on the fly, through the air, to fit an immediate need. Kuh-crazy.

Got an iPhone on Saturday. Wait was an hour, at the Cambridgeside Apple Store. Actual purchase took another 30 minutes, including a very fast number-port. (So, yes, I have the same phone number.) Buyer's remorse is forever. No, not really; I definitely needed a new phone anyway coz my two oldies are both in fritzy condition after many years of bang-around use. And ever since using a Smartphone for the first time ever - classicaljunkie's Blackberry, during our Maine vacation last year - I have been making a mental note each time I've been on the sidewalk and thought gee it'd be useful if I could hit the Web right now.

Got the $300 16GB model. I like it. The actual-phone improvements seem to be just what they promised. While the quality of incoming voice sounds slightly fuzzier than what my old phones delivered, the reception is otherwise loud and clear, and I'll soon forget the difference. The visual voicemail interface is excellent. And I've just started to explore everything else it can do. I definitely like everything I'm seeing.

But now I am set up to pay $20 / month more for phone usage than I used to, and that's a bummer. I'm trying to alleviate it through proactivity: I just now canceled my subscription to WiFi at the Diesel Cafe, for which I was paying $14 / month. I do sometimes use it, but there are enough free options around now (hello True Grounds), to say nothing of the new cellular-based internet device in my pocket, that it just doesn't make good sense anymore. I still felt bad when the salesguy said "looks like you're a longtime user of ours"; I have been, for many years. I told him I was moving, even though he didn't ask why I was canceling (which was pretty awesome of him). (And, yes, I'm actually moving closer to the Diesel, if anything.)

I'm considering putting a temporary kibosh on the $5 that I donate to somafm.com every month as well, as the combined savings between that and Diesel would near-enough match the increased cost of my new AT&T plan over my old T-Mobile one. Oh, I probably can't bring myself to do it. I crank up one or another of its streaming stations whenever I need some pleasant sound-filler while I work, which is often.

I'm still at home! Doing nothing! But here's what I know so far.

mrmorse, who was considering getting in line at 7am, isn't reachable by cellphone at all. Curious.

radiotelescope upgraded the software on his 2007 iPhone, and it said "Uh buh I can't see the iTunes Store" and refused to start. Then he went to work. Uncanny.

classicaljunkie advises that I hit the shops myself in the early afternoon. Okay.