Iphone | Glenn Ward

Alternative Apple iPhone 3GS headphones / earphones as recomended by twitter followers

UPDATE 26.02.12: I thought I’d update this post as there are a few more headphones on the market that will work as per the Apple iPhone headphones (and cheaper) for the 4 and the 4s. I had a look in my local tescos the other day as I have lost another set of Apple headphones and both sets of Addidas Seinheisers are out of action.

I bought these and they work perfectly KIT Sound iPhone Stereo Earphones with Microphonebut also while I was there I saw these Bliss Black Metallic Earphones available in various colours and for those (like me) who loses or breaks them all the time, pretty cheap to.

Please add anything else you find to the comments on this page to keep it up to date, thanks!

After not having too much success with a google search for an alternative replacement set of headphones for my iPhone 3GS I turned to Twitter for some advice. I got quite a response so I thought I would share the tweet recommendations. Note: I have popped into a reseller and they did tell me that apple would replace a faulty set still within the 1 year manufacturers warranty.

Apple [Link]
Replacements for the headphones that ship with the iPhone £21 and the in ear earphones are £59 on the Apple site.
Z.buds [Link]
These look awesome, durable, not to expensive and all the iPhone functions.
Griffin [Link]
SmartTalk and TuneBuds Mobile. Two solutions and not too expensive, both do not have volume control though.
Bose ipod buds [Link]
A little more expensive, in line microphone but no volume.
Klipse Image S4i Earphones [Link]
Looks like a good set of headphones, a little expensive although comes with a 2 year warranty, microphone but as far as I can see no volume control.
Etymotic hf2 Hands-free Headset [Link]
Again going for the sound quality higher end of the market, a little expensive mic, control, but again no volume.
JVC HA-KX100 [Link]
Affordable, mic and control but again no in line volume.

Tuning up the iPad for the office, streamline your tablet for business use

I bought my iPad for 2 main reasons, firstly to make the 1:30hr train journey to work bare able with some light entertainment and the other to make myself more efficient at my work both in the office and on the train.

Choose your Apps wisely, it will be different for everyone depending on your industry and function but there are apps out there for most purposes. Most of the good ones are not free so I urge you to do some research, ask around or install the free version to find out if it suits your needs. There’s nothing worse than purchasing something that is completely not what you though it was. It’s not like you can return an App.

So here’s my build so far and I will go into more details on certain apps in separate blog posts. The following apps are my productivity apps, in my opinion these are apps that make me more efficient in my daily tasks. In my opinion the best apps are the ones that span across your Mac desktop / laptop, iPad and iPhone. So, my first recommendation does just that, it’s free and it will be appropriate for most.

Evernote – Evernote is a intuitive note taking app that with all the basic functions you will need to make, save and organize your notes. The beauty is that I can start my note taking in a meeting or on the train and when I open the desktop of mobile version my notes are there waiting for me right where I left off.

Keynote – Another app that is available on Mac, Pad and Phone. I have now started using keynote for presentations after doing some testing on importing PowerPoint presentations. Obviously industry standard for most, this was more of a need than a want, more on this in a separate post. My other keynote recommendations are to download the keynote remote for your iPhone, you can not only control your presentation but also check your notes remotely. Finally, buy the adapters for VGA connection and hdmi.

Dropbox – You’ve probably used this before but again a great app for syncing your files across all your devices.

SimpleMind – I had the trial version of this software for a day before I bought the full version. There is loads of mind mapping software out there but I found this one did exactly what I needed to do and it has really helped me get some sleep after large brain dumps.

Sketchbook – what it says on the tin, it’s a digital sketchbook full of nice features to produce some really nice visuals.

Bamboo Paper – a simpler sketchbook but great for quick visualization that you would usually scrawl on a bit of paper to explain something.

Tips and tricks
You can open PDF attachments on your emails in iBooks, just click the icon in the top right.

MP3 Music downloads, iTunes, Play, Amazon, HMV and Find-CD

I might be preaching to the converted on this one but if you are one of those people who if you wanted an album or tune you would just search it on iTunes and buy it, there’s plenty of sites now with mp3 downloads way beyond the standard price. I first discovered this when searching hotukdeals, linked through to Play.com and bought Cream Future Trance for £2.99 which is now one of the most played albums on my iPhone. Now I check Play, Amazon, HMV with a quick look on find-cd before just getting it from iTunes. Amazon have even developed a little download software that make the process almost as easy as downloading it from iTunes!

Review – Findaproperty iPhone App

Since I was planning another possible relocation, this time from London to Brighton it seemed perfect timing that the findaproperty popped into the iTunes app store.

For a property app that searches a database of listings this app has a few nice touches that even eBay could learn from. The functionality and usability is well thought out and 15 screen shots and hints when you first launch the app means you are soon aware of the features. The findaproperty app has the usual search functions you would expect and makes use of your current location. The home screen adheres to Apples development concept of keeping things simple and supplies just 4 buttons along the bottom for new search, saved searches, recent searches and your account settings which leads me to the first of the nice touches. The app allows you to quickly sign up for an online account and syncs your searches and saved searches, recognising that users more and more like their online activity and how they access the Internet to lead how things function rather than design and development being led by the device. The other little extra that stood out was the ability to swipe through the listings while in the listing view. By this I mean that there is no need to hit back, go back to the listings, scroll and then tap the next house.

While in listing view the map button quickly loads up a google maps and the properties are annotated with pins which is very nice if location is a key criteria to your search.

The listing view is slick and if you are browsing on wireless the images are quick to load allowing you to quickly assess the property. The listings are not unnecessarily scrollable with links or buttons to further information and contacts rather than cramming all the info into one page.

One thing I would have liked to see and this merely reflects upon my search. I very much like on the website that in the listing view I can see the distance to nearest train station. As a commuter this info would effect whether I even look at the listing or not. However the map view allows you to make this assessment to.

Check out the App on the Findaproperty website.

Review – Sony Dream Machine ICF-CL75IP iPhone alarm clock radio with 7 inch display

This Christmas I asked Santa for a new clock radio with an iPhone dock built in. My old one was perfectly alright but since it was built for the iPod it no longer charged my phone which had become quite annoying. My eldest sister rose to the challenge and being partial to my gadgets, I think had a little bit of fear of getting it wrong! But she got it so right!!

The new Sony Dream Machine and it is a DREAM MACHINE does everything I wanted a clock radio to do and a whole lot more, with a few nice touches thrown in there to polish it off.

Where to begin? Let’s start with the obvious! It’s got a 7 inch screen! As you know 7 inches is quite enough! And like you are wondering now and I was wondering as I took it out the box, is that merely a digital picture frame or can I watch movies through it? And yes, yes you can. The 7 inch display (800×480) allows you to watch your iTunes movies, video on YouTube, and even things like the iPlayer! Genius! and supports Mp4, M-Jpeg and Avi file formats. It also is a digital picture frame for when the machine is idle and this can easily be switched to sleep mode when you hit the hay with 3 taps of the snooze button.

The dock foe the iPhone pops out, spring loaded from the right hand side, you can control your music or video from the iPhone or from the dream machine. The sound is good and I’d so far to say more than you’d expect from a clock radio. Oh! Clock radio! The main function, it’s got a sweet clock radio that allows you to be woken up by radio, iPhone or sound of nature and matching image. One of the nice little extras is that you can set more than one alarm and adjust them from one button on either side of the display the alarms can also be programed to just go off over weekdays or just at weekends which if like me you are away most weekends saves having to remember to manually switch it.

The entire menu screen is based on the playsation 3 theme and is just as intuitive, you’ll get to grips with it with limited consultation of the instruction book.

The dream machine has 1 gig internal memory so that you can import photos, music and video. It has a USB slot SD slot and obviously the iPod dock.

The radio is pretty sweet an gets a better signal than the old clock radio I had in exactly the same position.

OK now for some negatives
The first USB stick I plugged into it could not be read, second one fine.
I cannot for the life of me figure out how to delete the sample pictures which is really frustrating having them on my little slide show.
Also, if the clock radio is on sleep mode and you drop the iPhone in you will get the this device is not supported error and it keeps flashing up but this is no biggy! Just tap snooze and drop the iPhone in again.

The import photos, pictures, images, camera, role from your iPhone Mystery – Transfer NOT using iTunes but Image Capture

This subject is not documented much so i thought I’d explain how to quickly import pictures from your camera role on your iPhone. The obvious thing would be to use iTunes to transfer your photos to your laptop but this is not the case.

You can set up in iTunes to sync a folder on your mac with your phone but this does not retrieve them. On the old iPod you could set the device to appear on the desktop or my computer as an external drive but I don’t think this possible with the iPhone.

With the iPhone plugged in, go to Utilities and open Image Capture. On the left hand side you should see you iPhone and in the main window you will see you entire camera roll. The rests pretty self explanatory! It’s the knowing which program to use which is the undocumented part.

For windows users apparently you can use regular camera capture software, alternatively… buy a Mac!

Review – Amazon Kindle iPhone App now available in the iTunes App Store

Today, for the first time since “The far away tree” I lost myself in a book. I am not much of a reader at length. Most of my library is reference and I dip in and out as I need to learn but today I discovered something great. Roughly a month ago a colleague called me into his office to show me his new Amazon Kindle. Being one for gadgets and tech I was impressed, mainly considering the space I could save. I put it on the future purchases and thought nothing of it until the other day. I was browsing the Zagg website when I came across their App recommendation tool, I signed up and in my first list of recommendations was the Amazon Kindle iPhone App. Without hesitation I installed it, linked it to my amazon account and began searching for a book to test the App. After a short browse I discovered that you could send a sample of hue books to your Kindle to decide whether it’s the book for you. Very impressed I chose a couple and today on the train I spent the entire 40 minutes reading. Now this, for most is no major accomplishment bit one of the reasons I stopped prolonged reading was not by choice, I would get four pages into a book and wake up 2 hours later. The Amazon Kindle for iPhone has a function to switch the color to sepia. I found this a lot less hypnotic than the harsh black and white of a usual page. Maybe it was the time of day, maybe it was mind over matter as I was reading a book on a gadget but I know that I don’t have time to wait for my books to age to that sepia sort of color and will be reading a lot more on my iPhone.

eCommerce – Should online stores be thinking about website usability from a mobile access POV

I was asked the other day if it would be a good idea to produce a shops brochure as an iPhone App. After taking off my iPhone evangelist hat I replied objectively. More and more people are accessing the Internet in new ways but successful apps work because they allow users to quickly and easily perform a task that they would normally do or feel comfortable doing on a laptop.

So back to the question, is it really realistic that every user would install an app for each of the stores they occasionally shop? I doubt it! And although the iPhone dominates the Market they still only account for a portion and unless you are prepared to develop for blackberry, android etc you will only be reaching out to a small proportion of shoppers.

While I have never been a fan .mobi idea of developing sites specific for mobile phone browsers as mobile phones, screen aspect ratios differ across every mobile devices, with increasing devices being able to cope with full screen browsing I would be inclined to look at the build of the main site, optimise the pages for fast download and take a long hard look at the checkout.

In these early stages of online mobile development I would not rule out in investing in getting the catalogue onto mobile devices but possibly a PDF that can be opened on most smart phones with links to your recently optimised web pages is the way to go at this stage. Think about layout of the PDF, file size, usability and linking. This file will also have the added viral advantage of being emailed and viewed at leisure without an Internet connection.

Also see iPhone apps or Online apps? What is the future as new smartphones emerge?

Facebook iPhone App now syncs phonebook and contacts

Today I downloaded the update for the Facebook App and discovered that they had added a sync option for Facebook friends and your contacts. This is a function that other smart phones had begun to add and I thought I was going to have to admit the the iPhone was behind on this one. Thanks to the power of the App, iPhone wins again!!

I performed the sync as you can see on the image on the right hand side. So far I have no problems, duplicates etc. the contacts seems to have matched up and have a thumbnail image and a link back to the Facebook profile.

Movies on the move – Convert your DVD’s for viewing on your iPhone, iPod or Mobile Device

I often want to take a few of my favourite movies away with me when I go away. It is possible to convert your DVD’s into a format that will play on your iPod, iPhone or any portable device to save you physically carrying the discs around with you. I am going to talk about a software I use on a Mac but you can download similar software for windows, just look on download.com or softpedia.com.

I use Handbrake to convert my DVD’s it’s really easy to use and now comes with present for most popular portable devices. Open up handbrake and insert you DVD, if you DVD Player software loads up just quit out of this as you don’t want the computer doing two things at once. Choose Source in the top left hand corner and locate your disc, you don’t have to go deep into folder structure, top level is enough for handbrake to assess the disc. Once selected Handbrake will review all the chapter on the disc. Make sure you have selected the first chapter right through to the last chapter to ensure you convert the entire DVD.

Select the preset for the output video using the drawer on the right handside of the interface. Handbrake now has presets for iPhone, iPod and iPod Touch to make things nice and simple but if you are worried about file size then you can fine tune the settings yourself.

Once you are happy and have selected where you would like your file to be saved hit the Start button next to the Source button at the top of the interface.

Open the file in iTunes and it will be copied into your iTunes Media Folder, next time you sync you device the file will be uploaded.

Also see Duplicating DVD’s and CD’s using Mac OSX’s Disk Utility