Feature: October 2008 Archives

The highly-touted Genius function comes not only to the iTunes 8.0, but to iPhone 2.1 software. To install it, however, you must have Genius downloaded it onto iTunes using your iTunes account. The iPhone must then be synced to that iTunes. Again, iPhone Genius does not automatically download with iPhone 2.1 software, but with syncing of a Genius-enabled iTunes. (And we discussed Genius on regular iTunes in the second-to-last column.)

Once you're set up, Genius is added as one of the iPhone Playlists. Touch the iPod icon, then the Playlist tab.

Genius will now be the first option. Hit Genius and your music collection with be shown, in alphabetically order, listed by song. Select a song you would like to use and the software will make a playlist for you with comparable songs, just like the big brother version on the PC/Mac.

There are a couple minor differences between the iTunes Genius and the iPhone Genius, the first simply because of size.

Don't panic when someone sends you an SMS, instant or e-mail message that seems to be written in a foreign language. This list will help you decipher the lingo so you'll know you asp from your EMA.

Author: Damon Brown

iTunes wasn't the only dramatic change recently as the iPhone also got a nice, shiny update with 2.1. Aside from a portable version of Genius, discussed in my last column, the improvements are incremental, but important.

 

Author: Ray Everett-Church

The first step to recovery, they say, is to admit that you have a problem. So the ability to admit that everyone in my household has an unhealthy addiction to our Apple iPhones would seem to be a step in the right direction.

Unfortunately, the iPhone addiction is making my family, and all of our iPhone addicted friends (of which there are a lot!), make choices that are unhealthy for our privacy and security.

The brilliant design and general ease of use of the iPhone are attracting many "CrackBerry" users, and fans of other fun mobile devices -- what folks in the substance abuse world call "gateway" drugs. My previous addiction was the Nokia E61i and a Blackberry before that, and even then I was already showing signs of the growing problem of unsafe behavior.

The signs were there with those other devices, but as the iPhone addiction has swept through my home, it's become clear to me: as more functions, capabilities and data repositories move out into the "cloud" where they can be accessed by clever devices like iPhones, the need for drop-dead easy authentication is even more pressing.

What brought it home to me was watching as the three bipeds in our home (as soon as our cats evolve thumbs I’m sure they’ll be demanding their own iPhones too) constantly scrambling to create passwords that are iPhone keyboard friendly, rather than being driven by strong security.

Author: John Roling

When Apple’s iPhone 3G was announced, Apple made a big deal about supporting Enterprise email. The problem for Lotus Notes users was that “Enterprise” initially only meant Microsoft Exchange. And while that hasn’t changed for built-in iPhone connectivity, IBM has made Lotus Notes on the iPhone a reality with Lotus iNotes Ultralite.

IBM Lotus iNotes Ultralite is a web application that you access through the mobile Safari web browser on the iPhone. You go to the same URL you are used to for normal webmail access, and the email template is smart enough to serve up a mobile browser optimized version of your Lotus Notes.

Lotus iNotes Ultralite Homepage

Notes Ultralite includes access to the following pieces of your Lotus Notes:

Your inbox

The Sent mail view

The All Documents view

Your trash folder

Your Day At A Glance daily calendar

Your Contacts

When you access your inbox, you can read all of your messages (including rich text HTML messages,) reply, forward and create new emails. You can move the message to the trash or even take already read messages and mark them as unread.

During these transactions, you are actually accessing your live email file on the server so changes are instantaneous.

Lotus iNotes Ultralite Inbox

In addition to the normal email functions associated with the Inbox, you can scroll through everything you’ve Sent from Lotus Notes and you can also view every document in your entire mail file by going into the All Documents view. Lastly, you have the ability to look at anything you’ve deleted within the last 48 hours by checking the Trash folder.

Access to these basic functions are pretty decent, but there are a couple caveats. First, you have no way of seeing your folders or moving email to a specific folder within Lotus Notes. That means that if you have an email saved in a particular folder and not the inbox, the only way to find it is by checking the All Documents folder.

That in itself wouldn’t normally be much of a problem, but there is no Search function within iNotes Ultralite. This causes a problem if you have to find the proverbial needle in a haystack. Trying to find a message out of thousands in your All Documents folder without being able to search takes too much time. It CAN be done, but it’s fairly tedious.

Sending a new email

Author: Damon Brown

In his last column, Damon Brown took a close look at the new iPods Apple rolled out at its "Let's Rock!" event earlier this month. This time around, he focuses on software: specifically, iTunes 8 with its new Grid View and much-hyped Genius playlist feature.

iTunes 8, which you would have been automatically prompted to download by now, has a few subtle differences overall. For instance, the Mini Player option has been switched to the View menu and the Shuffle has been moved to the Controls menu, neatly divided into "Turn Off Shuffle," "By Songs," "By Albums," and "By Groupings."

That said, the biggest hype has been around two additions: Album Grid and Genius. Let's look at the (slightly less cooler) Album Grid first.

Start up iTunes 8 and it will automatically recheck your songs for downloadable album covers. It will then default into Album Grid. All your songs are listed, via the album cover, in a vertical column. At the top the category listing can be reorganized by Album, Artists, Genre and Composer.

You'll see a control bar next to the categories. Move the control bar to adjust the size of the album and, therefore, the amount of album covers shown per row. The search function - located in the upper right hand corner - works exactly the same. Also, as usual, you can use the icons next to the search bar to list or Cover Flow your collection.

Finally, the much-hyped Genius creates on-the-spot playlists based on what you're in the mood to listen to. The Genius Sidebar is available immediately in iTunes 8 - a sidebar will pop up asking you to turn it on. First, it will ask you to log into your Apple Store account so Genius can recommend available songs to you (if you don't have an account, it will ask you to create one).