Twootball Falls Short Of Goal Line
When I saw the description for the Twootball iPhone App, a smile came to my face.
Twootball has one simple function - display a live stream twitter conversation about NFL teams, organized around the games for that week. The idea of sitting in front of an upcoming playoff game and easily meeting new people via conversations about the action on screen seemed like a no-brainer to me. So, even though I don’t usually interface with technology on Sundays, I downloaded the free app and waited to give it a whirl.
Selecting which game I wanted to have a conversation around was simple.
On first glance, it delivered just what I was hoping for. Unfortunately, the moment I went to reply to one of the tweets in the stream, I was disappointed. Nothing happened. I touched my finger to the screen several times. I expected a window to open giving me the ability to reply to the sender, or retweet their comment. Instead, nothing happened. I even restarted the app to make sure it hadn’t frozen in some way. No luck.
Without the ability to reply or retweet, Twootball becomes somewhat pointless. Especially since I can enter hashtags into Summizer, or even create a special football page on Tweetgrid, that would allow me to do exactly that with minimal effort. I was surprised to find that even on the Twootball.com website, replies and retweets are not possible. This seems like basic functionality to me.
I love the concept of Twootball, and the interface is nice, but I don’t want to simply watch a stream of comments. I want an easy way to engage in a conversation. In that regard, Twootball fumbles the ball.
Tweetie - My New Favorite iPhone Twitter App
I hate saying the name, but I love using Tweetie. Tweetie is a recent addition to the slew of Twitter applications available on the iPhone.
I’ve tried every Twitter application on the iPhone, including the favorites Twinkle, Twitterific, and Twittelator. I’ve even tried Tweetsville, TwitterFon and GPSTwit and fired off photos with Twitfire. But in the end, I always ended up coming back to Hahlo, a web-based Twitter client built specifically for the iPhone.
Why? Simplicity and the ability to separate “replies” from “direct messages.” I wish it were more complicated than that. It’s not. I don’t want my direct messages mixed in with my replies and I certainly don’t want them mixed into my friend stream, indicated only by color. I want to choose easily whether to reply in public or private and I want to be certain that choice is honored. Hahlo did all of that for me. Tweetsville does it as well, but doesn’t allow me to access replies on the main screen. And… the one feature that was missing from Hahlo, was the ability to retweet, to easily repost something interesting.
Tweetie gives me all of that and more.
It is has now replaced Hahlo on my main iPhone toolbar. Tweetie allows me to set up multiple Twitter accounts, as you can see below. That’s helpful. My only “complaint” is that they’ve gone overboard on the text bubbles. I’d like to see more tweets on screen at one time and the graphics are taking up too much space.
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That said, the fact that “Tweets,” “Replies,” and “Messages” are easily accessef from the main menu was the first clue that I was going to like this app. And when I choose to reply, the option buttons are large and easy to hit accurately. I can’t tell you how frustrating the small icons on most of the iPhone apps are to hit accurately.
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The ability to copy and paste links was an unexpected bonus! When you access a link in a tweet, it opens inside the Tweetie browser.
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The icon on the lower left then gives you the ability to either open the link in Safari or “post the link,” which copies a shortened URL into a new tweet. Sweet.
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Ahh, but there’s more. Easy access to Twitter Search features and trends. And a quick way to search for tweets directed at me, but not directly at me, via the “Search @ResPres” button.
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In addition, Tweetie allows me to save drafts and easily follow and favorite right from the app. Simply put, this is finally a Twitter iPhone App I can recommend. Now, if only Twitter would take the limits off the API. The reason I keep resorting to Search.Twitter.com, even on the iPhone, is this:
But I know it’s not Tweetie’s fault. So, my first click is on Tweetie now. If that fails, then my saved Twitter Search icons are my fallback plan. 
TweetGrid - A Quick Tutorial
If anything qualifies as sane technology, TweetGrid does. And since I finished this quick video, upon my request, @JazzyChad has added a “ReTweet” feature that will come in very, very handy.
TweetGrid - A Quick “How To” from respres on Vimeo.
iPhone Weather Apps
I guess you could say that I have turned into quite the iPhone app junkie lately. It’s almost a daily ritual to check what new apps have been published on the
iTunes App Store. One of my interests is weather, and while Apple’s Weather application has a simple interface, it only provides current and forecasted temperatures. Because one of my other hobbies is flying radio controlled gliders, I am also interested in wind forecasts.
MyWeather Mobile not only provides temperature forecast information, but it also provides temperature and wind speed forecast graphs that are easy to read. The $9.99 price tag makes it one of the more expensive apps I’ve purchased, but it’s interface is easy to navigate and uncluttered.
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The Weather Channel also published an iPhone application earlier this month and while it contains much of the same information available in MyWeather Mobile, it displays it in tabular form instead of a graph. The hourly forecast screen shows the next 12 hours of temperature, precipitation, and wind and the 36-hour forecast screen shows summarized information for each day rather than each hour. The Weather Channel iPhone application is currently free.
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I should point out that both apps will use your GPS location to show weather information for your current location in addition to the cities you manually add.
Wireless Mac Control Using An iPhone
I‘m writing this post on my Mac Pwerbook. That’s not news. I do it all the time. But since I injured my shoulder yesterday and can’t effectively use a keyboard or mouse, i’m controlling my Powerbook with my iPhone.
I’m usung Air Mouse, the clear winner in my quick search for an option that would allow me to work using my right index finger. It beat out Snatch. And it’s wasn’t even a close competition.
Snatch
While the Snatch touchpad is larger and allows for multi-touch control, it has several problems. First, the multi-touch is finicky. It performs only ome of the time, which forces you to switch to the scrolling control screen to scroll inside windows. Second, the mouse position control is not accurate. a lot of time is spent getting the mouse to the correct position on the screen. And third, the keyboard is hidden away on yet another screen. Snatch simply requires too much effort. The two main control screens are shown below.
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Air Mouse
In stark contrast, Air Mouse places most of the controls you need on one screen (see below). Two buttons, a scroll wheel, track pad and keyboard are all on screen at the same time. It is all I needed to type this post, and upload photos.
The cursor control is extremely accurate and responsive. And it acts as you would expect it to. Taps and double taps on the track pad respond just like the Powerbook trackpad. And the secondary control screen gives me access to my programmed mouse options.
After one evening of use, i’m now comfortably conrolling every aspect of this process with my right arm pinned against my chest, leaning back comfortably and without moving my shoulder at all. Air Mouse allows me to work. I would have been severely limited without it!
Panorama vs. Pano - iPhone Application Review
Two applications have surfaced over the past few months for creating panoramic photos on the iPhone, Pano (Debacle Software $2.99) and Panorama (i Fone Guys $9.99). Each application does exactly what it’s supposed to do, stitch together multiple photos into “seemless” panoramic image.
Here is the Pano example, made from four photos:
Here is the Panorama example, made from six photos:
Quality Issues
If you click on the photos above, you will be taken to their Flickr pages. Look at the original photo sizes and you’ll see that each photo has some “ghosting” that occurs in small portions of the image. These result from the images not aligning properly. The Pano sample has significantly larger ghosting issues, some of which may be the result of using fewer photos to pan the same range. These panoramic images are done without a tripod, so perfection is going to nearly impossible. For my money, the Panoramic App does a consistently better job of stitching the photos. However, it does require more photos to do the same job. In this sample, Panorama required six photos to Pano’s four. I don’t have a problem with taking a few more photos, personally.
They Key Difference Is The Process
In addition to the number of photos required to achieve the panoramic image, how each application assists you in aligning the images is fundamentally different. Pano uses a transparent portion of the previous shot to help you align subsequent shots. Like this:
I find the transparent image more difficult to align, especially in bright light conditions. It takes me much longer to align images in Pano than it does in Panorama. Panorama uses a different approach.
The hard edge allows me to better align one shot to the next and Panorama also seems to be less sensitive to the accuracy of the alignment. I have no trouble aligning images using Panorama, regardless of the lighting conditions. I don’t even attempt to use Pano in bright sunlight conditions.
Pano vs. Panorama: My Preference?
It’s probably obvious from the comments above that I prefer the Panorama application over the Pano application. But the Panorama application has a tendency to crash more often than Pano. I believe this has to do with how much memory is involved in processing the photos. Restarting the iPhone before using either one should clear out the memory and make each less prone to crashing, but as you add more and more photos to Panorama, you tempt fate. Neither application saves your progress, so a crash requires you to start over from scratch. Still, the clear winner for me is Panorama from i Fone Guys.
However, there is a message in the Pano for iPhone group on Flickr that indicates they have some updates coming soon that will wow us. I’ll come back and updat if they do.
StepTrackLite Confirmed That I Am Out Of Shape
2 miles into my “run” this morning, I approached an intersection, thankful to see the big red hand telling me to stop. I might have stopped anyway. I was sucking wind hard.
I hadn’t run in a long, long time. And as I took in large quantities of air, I had a brief moment of clarity. “Hey,” I thought. “Maybe I should test StepTrakLite for the last portion of this death march.” So I did.
The last portion of my run/jog/walk is 100% uphill. It’s the downside of living on one of the highest points around. I didn’t even attempt to run it. I just turned on StepTrakLite and put the iPhone back in my pocket. For most of that last mile, I simply walked at a brisk pace. It was certainly faster than I’d normally walk, but it did not even approach a Jog. When I pulled the iPhone out of my pocket and checked the final stats, this is what I found.
First off, I clearly need to alter the settings, you’ll see that graphic below. It judged my brisk walk as running and I can tell you right now, that just wasn’t the case. But apparently 248 of my steps were so slow that they registered as walking. I don’t know what part of the “run” those steps might have taken place. I wasn’t getting enough oxegen to my brain to remember anything. What the graphic clearly shows, however, is that it took me sixteen and a half minutes to walk that last uphill mile. Yep. That confirms it. I’m officially out of shape. Thanks for that insight, StepTrakLite. I appreciate it.
I watched for part of the way and it did indeed count each step accurately, even though my classification of steps was off. I would agree that it was “vigorous” but I wasn’t running. So, the application allows you to change the sensitivity in the settings.
Clearly, I need to change my classification bias to have it more accurately predict my running. But applications like this one are what I love about the iPhone. StepTrakLite helps make the iPhone something more than a phone. And this is an application I’ll certainly be using on my “runs” in the future.
Maybe soon I’ll be able to remove the quotations from “run,” and when it counts my steps as running, they actually will be. Sounds like a worthy goal to me.
Fring Has Made Me Smile (Skype On iPhone)
One of the things I’ve been longing to do is use Skype VOIP on the iPhone. Fring is now available on the iphone and within 2 minutes of download I was using my wireless connection to talk via voice and chat with my friends on Skype. It allows you to connect to Twitter, AIM, Google Talk, ICG, and others, sure. But Skype is what I wanted and Skype is what I got. I’m a happy guy right now. Click on the images below to see some screen captures.
Apple, Please Let The Good Ideas Live
NetShare Unlikely to Return to U.S. App Store - Mac Rumors.
You’ll be hard pressed to find a bigger Apple advocate than me. I know they’re out there, but they don’t get out much. So, when I dog Apple, you can bet I feel strongly about it.
In a conversation with Teresa Boardman, a Realtor® from St Paul, Minnesota, she stated very strongly, “unless the iPhone will let me access the internet via my computer, like my phone does, I’m never going to switch.” I know this is anecdotal, but when she said it my brain said, “She’s right. The iPhone should enable this.” At the time, only days after the iPhone launch, I figured someone would write an app and that would be that. And someone did.
Apparently that is not that. Apple and AT&T continue to march toward taking more and more control over the applications and services that are allowed on the iPhone. Some of that control is certainly necessary to prevent malware and other “bad stuff” from happening. But preventing truly beneficial apps from making their way onto the iPhone, while allowing dozens of ridiculous “tip calculators” to thrive, is further indication that Apple still doesn’t want to understand the needs of the business user.
It’s not like they couldn’t make money from it. I, for example, would gladly pay a bit more on the data plan to not have to have tote around the wireless card for my laptop. I can’t be alone.
My bet is that this controlling trend will continue. And that should further the Jailbreaking movement. But with iPhone production ramped to 800,000 units per week, the number of users who will opt out as a result of these shortcomings won’t even amount to a speed bump in their sales chart.
This makes no sense to me. But hey, what do I know, I think having a Flash plugin for Safari on the iPhone is a good idea too. Clearly I’m wrong.
Upgrading To WordPress 2.6 (Late)
The problem with long vacations is that you often miss things. The benefit of long vacations is that you don’t care.
So, I missed the launch of WordPress 2.6 and have just installed it using the Wordpress Automatic Upgrade plugin. Talk about some TechnoSanity. The plugin works beautifully and the entire process took less than 10 minutes. And I’m happily writing this post using the new “Press This” bookmarklet that is now a part of Wordpress 2.6, doing away with the need for the QuickPost plugin I had been using.
I love it when things just work.