Archive for category iPhone
BibleTech08: Day 1 – Session 04; The Zoomable Bible
Posted by palmsolo in BibleTech08, Blog, Christian, iPhone on January 25, 2008
I wasn’t quite sure what talk I was going to attend for the fourth session, but then I read a bit more of the summary of the talk in room 2 and was quite excited to hear about the Zoomable User Interface Bible. Mr. Sean Boisen from Logos Bible Software has developed a prototype unique way to interact with the Bible that I thought was fantastic. It reminds me a bit of applying something like MindManager to the Bible as the tool uses a visual representation to interact with the Bible.
Sean’s inspirations included his past manuscript study methods, treemaps (I found these fascinating and plan to check them out more), and zoomable interfaces (such as Google Earth and the iPhone).
The Zoomable Bible is a spatially-oriented view of the entire text of the Bible. You can then zoom down into it several times to interact with the text. There is also the possibility of embedding images, links, and more into this Bible so that if you zoom in far enough you can access this data. The Zoomable Bible uses zooming and panning for navigation rather than the old ways of interacting such as scrolling and moving your mouse all over the place.
The presentation should be posted on the internet in the near future and I’ll post a link to it here so you can check it out yourself. Here are a few photos of the prototype Sean created.
Almost full view of the Bible
Zooming in on the Book of Job
Zoomed in to read Job by verse
Technorati Tags: BibleTech08
Is gadget lust a struggle for you?
Antoine posted a good link to start off this week about Addressing Gadget Envy that you should take a look at. He links to a very good post at Get Rich Slowly on How to Cope with Gadget Envy. It was a nice read that helps you to refocus on priorities in your life and whether or not you really need that latest gadget. Thankfully, there was nothing at MacWorld that is calling for my money this year so I am safe from Apple for now.
If you read my ZDNet blog you will see I use a lot of different mobile phones, but thankfully most of them are loaners or review units that eventually get sent back to public relations companies or manufacturers. The shine usually wears off after the review period, but there are those devices that I do find essential that I purchase. In the last year, I have purchased an Apple iPhone, T-Mobile Shadow and Nokia N95-3. There are probably 8 or so other mobile phones in my review drawer right now that are review/evaluation units. Even though the Lord has blessed me with a great “day job” and a fun hobby career, writing for ZDNet, I do pretty well in keeping my credit card in my wallet and avoiding buying all the latest and greatest. I would love to pick up an ultra-portable PC, but there is no need for it no matter how much justifying I try to come up with.
I think you will see me exhibiting even more self-control in 2008 as I am trying very hard to spend more daily time with the Lord. My daughters are getting older and I want them to have a strong foundation in the Lord as they go through the teenage and college years where a strong foundation is needed with all the added peer pressure and negative influences of society. I am actually extremely close to canceling cable TV too since it seems like such a waste of money and is an influence I don’t want in my house anymore.
Do you struggle with gadget lust?
palmsolo's still here and summary of mobile happenings
Posted by palmsolo in Blog, Gadgets, iPhone, Nokia, Personal, s60, Smartphone, Travel, Windows Mobile, wireless carriers on October 29, 2007
Wow, I have been quite remiss in posting updates to this personal blog of mine and for those who are still actually reading it I apologize. I have been very busy with my yard (the grass is now about an inch in length and looking good – Flickr photos coming soon), coaching soccer (we only lost 1 game all season so far), watching soccer (my 2 oldest play for great teams too), spending time with my family, and blogging for ZDNet. I’ll try to update this a bit more regularly, but will give you a summary update below:
BlackBerry device in the house: Yes, it is true. I was sent a review T-Mobile BlackBerry Curve and this was really the first BlackBerry I spent any significant amount of time with. I really enjoy using it and plan to pick one up for myself soon, maybe even with the excellent @Home UMA/WiFi service that can reduce my monthly minute usage. I am amazed by how many 3rd party applications work with the device and find it to be very consumer focused now with the camera and media player. I posted a review on ZDNet and have very little to say about any dislikes with the device. I even found that Laridian has a Bible for the BlackBerry so I am very satisfied with the device!
iPhone still here too: I do still have my iPhone and AT&T account, but am probably going to be ending my AT&T contract soon by paying the early termination fee. I don’t need to be shelling out $70/month for a bit faster data than I see on T-Mobile, especially given the fact that I probably won’t be traveling as much in the future with much of our salvage work stopping soon (a change in our strategic plan at work). I still have my iPhone with the 1.0.2 firmware and find it to be a very nice device, but do miss all the 3rd party stuff available for Windows Mobile and BlackBerry.
HTC Advantage being used on the Sounder: HTC is still letting me evaluate the HTC Advantage as I conduct some software reviews (SoftMaker Office Suite, etc) and I have been using it primarily via WiFi on the Sounder commuter trains to and from work. I still may pick one of these up for myself for Christmas, but we’ll see what comes down the pipe soon.
New T-Mobile Shadow: T-Mobile just announced the HTC Shadow last night and it looks like a wonderful Windows Mobile Smartphone. My wife took my Dash and really likes the Smartphone platform, but she may like the Shadow even better with its larger display and cool slide-up display that reveals the phone keypad. She hates the volume JOGR on the Dash and at only $150, the Shadow looks like a great deal.
What about Nokia and S60?: I keep falling back to the excellent Nokia N95 for high quality phone functionality and 3rd party apps, but have no plans for upgrading any time soon. I thought of the N95-8GB, but with the new SanDisk 8GB microSD cards I think that is a better option. The N95-3G version looks good, but only works with AT&T in the U.S. The N81 looked good, until I read some reviews that weren’t that positive. It will be tough to top the N95, but I do really look forward to what Nokia will bring in 2008 with the new touch UI.
Thoughts on the Palm Centro: I am just about done with my review of the Palm Centro and have to say I think this is the BEST Palm OS device I have seen in a few years. When a GSM version is released I will most likely be picking one up for my Palm OS device (currently I only have older Palm devices in house). It is sleak, full featured, and priced right at $99.
MacBook Pro now running Leopard: My 160GB MBP drive crashed on me a couple weeks ago and I lost about 2 months of photos. It was still under warranty and a new drive arrived on Friday, along with my copy of Leopard. I made a clean install of Leopard on the replacement drive and now will be regularly backing up my data using the new Time Machine feature. I have no plans to upgrade my laptop any time soon and with my mobile device collection I don’t plan to get a UMPC either right now (as much as I would love to have an OQO Model 02 or something like that).
Upcoming travel plans: I will be flying into Amsterdam in November for a few days and then will be hitting the streets of Vegas for CES in January for 3 days. I am almost to MVP Gold status and may even have a trip or two to Alaska and one to Miami before the end of the year.
iPocketBible from Laridian is now available!
I have tried a few of the Bible applications on the Apple iPhone, but they are very basic and serve primarily as a way to read a specific Bible translation. Some are not formatted well for the iPhone and others don’t have the Bible translations that I prefer to read and study. Laridian has been working on a solution for iPhone users and I was very pleased to read on their blog they just launched iPocketBible. In the past I have actually switched mobile platforms to get PocketBible or MyBible working as I find this functionality that important in my life.
After reading the news, I immediately visited the site and saw that the service is US$1.99/month or US$19.99/year so I went ahead and subscribed for the year since I find their products that valuable to my mobile arsenal. The great feature for us who already own Laridian Bibles, devotionals, dictionaries, etc. is that you get full access to those resources you already purchased with PocketBible or MyBible so you just need the iPocketBible service. If this is your first Laridian purchase, then you will need at least one Bible translation to read some content and they actually offer bundle specials for this. One key note, that they actually bold on the site, is that you use two fingers to move down the page and read the content. At first, I did not read this and couldn’t figure out how to scroll down the page so I tapped the green arrow that ended up taking me to the next chapter. The interface is pretty slick and iPocketBible also allows you to search and set bookmarks that you can revisit later. They also have a list of upcoming features that will make this application almost like a stand-alone application with highlighting, personal notes for verses, reading progress planning, synchronization with PocketBible for Windows, and more.
iPocketBible just made my iPhone that much more useful and with T-Mobile as my carrier on the iPhone I am a very content Apple iPhone owner again.
UPDATE: I’ve been playing with the Nokia N95 again since the device is such a good media player and I really LOVE the 3rd party application support. I decided to give iPocketBible a try on it since there are no S60 versions from Laridian and guess what? It works! Now I did find I had to switch the zoom level or go from portrait to landscape to see my login boxes, but that was a quick step. You also scroll around in iPocketBible with two fingers, but on the S60 device a scroll bar does appear on the right side so you can maneuver without a touch screen. I did find that I had to scroll right and left to go between the scroll bar and the text, but the ability to access my Laridian resources on a S60 device is worth it. Keep up the great work Laridian.
Laridian bringing the Word to the iPhone
I just read over on Mobile Ministry Magazine that Laridian will be bringing their awesome Bible products to the Apple iPhone soon and have a video showing it up and running. I just recently posted on how I use my iPhone to read and study the Word, but am very EXCITED about seeing such a high quality product as Laridian’s coming to the iPhone as well. Keep up the great work Laridian and let’s get this out soon, please 
How do I use the iPhone for sermon notes and Bible study
Posted by palmsolo in Apple, iPhone, Smartphone, Uncategorized on July 22, 2007
At this time, there is no dedicated ebook reader that works on the Apple iPhone, but I have found other ways to access the Bible and use it for my walk with Jesus. The first thing I did was load up iPocketBible, the audio Bible. I put the whole New Testament on there to start with and unfortunately you cannot put the written Word into Notes since Notes on the iPhone don’t sync like they do with regular iPods.
I do use the Notes application, though, to record sermon notes in church. Since you cannot sync Notes over to a PC, I then email the sermon notes to my Gmail account where I then add a Sermon Notes label and archive the notes for further study in the future.
I have also found a couple of iPhone-optimized Bibles using the iPhoneAppr.com and GetLeaflets iPhone application aggregators.
So now I can listen to the Bible, read the Bible, and takes notes on the iPhone. These may not be the “cleanest” solutions, but they work and the Word is now once again with me and my Apple.
As the iPhone turns
Posted by palmsolo in Apple, iPhone, Uncategorized on July 20, 2007
So my soap opera with the iPhone has taken another turn that you may have read about on my ZDNet blog. After going almost 5 days without the iPhone I couldn’t stand it and went back and picked another up at the Apple store. I then cancelled my T-Mobile data plan to offset the cost for the AT&T plan and am quite satisfied with my final decision. The iPhone that I picked up this time actually has MUCH better speaker volume on the handset (the speakerphone is still too low) and there are now over 200 web applications, including at least 4 very good Bibles. The developers are helping make the iPhone experience much better and now we just need Apple to step up to the plate and release a firmware update that fixes a bunch of these issues.
I am also listening to a lot more podcasts and was wondering if anyone had any good Christian podcasts I should try out?
Apple iPhone heading back to AT&T today (again)
Posted by palmsolo in Apple, Gadgets, iPhone, Uncategorized on July 10, 2007
I really wanted to like the Apple iPhone and if I was an AT&T customer already I probably would have held on to it with the hope that Apple would be issuing updates to fix the issues with the device. It is very fun to use and is a great iPod, but it is a poor phone as I detailed in my latest ZDNet blog post. It is just way too expensive for a crippled mobile phone when there are so many other better alternatives out there, but I will definitely be keeping my eye on future Apple devices and do hope it forces Microsoft and Symbian/Nokia to take a look at their future operating system plans.
UPDATE: So I had the iPhone all packed up and was on the way to the store when I had to pull over and admire the device again. I just can’t return it after all the memories of camping out with my girls, fun posts at ZDNet, and the awesome UI. I discovered I can forward 500 minutes from T-Mobile to the AT&T number for free so the impact the my family plan should be minimal. I am going to give it a couple more days and hold off my final decision until minutes before the 14 day period, but I am leaning towards keeping it now.
UPDATE 2: OK, so the iPhone is all packed up and will be returned in about 1.5 hours to my local AT&T store. The extremely poor speaker volume, very weak email program, and monthly cost of adding AT&T to my T-Mobile service just pushed me back to a return state. I have to say it is a relief to finally make a final, final decision. I will definitely take another look at the iPhone after Apple updates it, but now I am much more educated on its limitations, and strengths, so I know when I will be willing to jump back into the iPhone game. Thanks for the 2 weeks Apple and good luck with the iPhone.
iPhone under review, is it a keeper?
I just returned two of the three iPhones I bought last Friday since my wife had no interest in keeping one and they are actually selling for less than what it cost me on ebay. I am still testing the one I opened and have another 10 days or so to decide what route I am going to take with it. The user interface is incredible and if you have used one you have probably also been blown away like me. However, as far as features go it has less than other smartphones and even less than many feature phones. I do have to applaud Apple for an outstanding first product in this very tough market and it will be interesting seeing what people think about the iPhone after the wow wears off.
Do you have an iPhone and if so, is it a keeper?
1st in line for an iPhone at the AT&T store
After more revelations that the iPhone SIM could be used in other devices just fine and that the EDGE data network has been maximized then I decided to get in line like a good gadget geek and wait for the iPhone. My two oldest daughters decided to join in too so we arrived 24 hours before the actual sale begins and ended up being the first in line in Puyallup, WA. You can check out a photo and a short video posted on my ZDNet blog.
