Recently in Review Category
When the little icon on my iPhone told me that there was an update for my Google Mobile App, I didn't realize that the UPDATE waiting for me was so super. As you may have heard, the Google Mobile for the iPhone now includes voice recognition. No need to type a search word or phrase, just launch Google and speak into the iPhone.
When you put the phone up to your ear, the iPhone's motion sensors sense that, and it begins recording. All you need to do is say in a normal voice your search terms, like "Plaza Hotel," "35 degrees Centigrade in Farenheit," or "pictures of the Liberty Bell."
Google searches and displays the results on your iPhone.
We found the voice recognition algorithm to be very accurate, although it sometimes misses on proper names.
The Google Mobile App also does searches based on your location. If you are in New York City or Atlanta and say "Movie show times," the App searches for movie times in that city.
Of course, with the Google Mobile App you can also type in your search using the touch screen keypad and you can access Google Mail and other Google applications through it.
There's even an instructional YouTube video (See below) to show you how to use the application.
This is a must have application for your iPhone.
Recording sounds on the iPhone has recently become as easy as taking pictures. Get the baby's first sounds, the bar band doing their encore, or add audio to your blog. Recording on an iPhone might even help a reporter on deadline. There are several programs that enable recording available at the iPhone store. We've chosen two, iTalk and iProRecorder, that are simple to use yet allow professional quality recordings.
iTalk by Griffin
This free application (an ad-free version is available for $.99 known as iTalk Premium) is more than a voice recorder. It can record high quality sounds that can be saved for replay on the iPhone or can be imported to your computer using Wi-Fi and drag and drop for further editing, burning to a CD, or e-mailing.
To transfer audio files to your computer you will need to also download on your computer a free program from Griffin. This program, when launched, will detect your iPhone, and once you confirm access on your iPhone the program will allow you to drag and drop audio files directly to your computer.
Three qualities of recording levels are available (Good/Better/Best). The Best level is high quality audio, suitable for broadcast.
iTalk has a nice interface and is compatible with the iPhone, iPhone 3G, or 2nd generation iPod Touch (requires a stereo headset).
iProRecorder by BIAS
This $.99 application also allows you to make high quality recordings. iPro has a beautiful interface and recording and playback is done with a simple one-touch. BIAS (see bottom image) is a well known audio software company and this program is a useful adjunct.
Let's end the week with a little music (part 1). Besides being an excellent communication and entertainment device, the iPhone is also an ideal teaching tool. One of our favorite learning apps is Mozart ($9.99, available here), which teaches note reading in a few minutes a day.
Mozart makes learning notes into a game, where the notes scroll across the screen and you have to identify them before they reach the left edge. There are plenty of customization options, letting you choose the clef, major or minor key, and instrument (it works for vocalists and violin or guitar players, too).
After only a little time playing, we noticed our ability to read notes getting stronger. This is a perfect teaching tool for anyone who plays music and needs to brush up on the basics.
Let's end the week with a little music (part 2). We're sorry, Shazam, we loved your amazing music ID feature before, but that's before Midomi stole our heart.
Midomi, available here, can do what Shazam does (quickly listen to and identify any song playing), but it does so much more. You can sing or hum to Midomi and it will still identify the song. You can speak or type a line from the song.
The only downside is that you have to remember to bookmark your finds, because Midomi doesn't automatically make a list of tagged songs, as Shazam does. Still, it's the far more useful song identification app, and it's got a permanent place on our iPhone.
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.
It's photo week on the blog, so we're exploring some of the cool paid apps that let you do surprising things with your iPhone's camera. CameraBag (temporarily $2.99, available here) lets you create different looks with your iPhone's camera, such as imitating the output from a plastic Holga camera (here called "Helga") or creating smooth black and whites, a la Ansel Adams.
Other looks include 1974 (faded and tinted), Lolo (over-saturated color, like a Lomo camera), Cinema (dramatic and moody), 1962 (dramatic black and whites), and Infrared (simulates a popular landscape photography technique).
Taking photos with CameraBag is incredibly fun. We love how bizarre the Helga setting makes portraits, or how the Lolo setting makes still lifes pop like a diner's neon sign. The app also works with pictures stored in your photo library, so you can give any image the CameraBag treatment.
The revised and updated iPod touch offers a slimmed down profile and bulked up features. While the change is more evolutionary than revolutionary, it makes using the player a lot more pleasant.
It's odd that Apple's marketing has dubbed this version the "funnest iPod ever" in ads, since all the fun features it's showcasing—the ability to download games, a built-in accelerometer, multi-touch controls—aren't new with this version. Still, there are plenty of new features to get excited about.
The Outside
Pick up the iPod Touch and you'll notice immediately that it's thinner than its predecessor. All versions are just 0.33-inches deep (as well as 4.3-inches tall and 2.4-inches wide, with a weight of 4.05 ounces). The back is now gracefully rounded, so it feels better in the hand.
The iPod touch has gained a few worthwhile physical features already found on the iPhone. It now has external volume buttons on the top left, so users can nudge the volume up or down without unlocking the screen. The touch also now has a speaker—an iPod first—so users can listen without headphones or earbuds. It doesn't provide the fullest, richest sound, naturally, but it's a helpful addition for those times when you want to share a song with some friends.
The Inside
The iPod touch comes with iPod software version 2.1.1, so you won't need to upgrade the software to get access to the online App Store. (Older iPod touch owners had to pay for the upgrade.)
That means this iPod touch also supports the new Genius feature, which enables the iPod to create playlists based off one starter song. In our testing, the Genius feature performed amazingly well, creating playlists that captured the mood and style of the original song, while still offering some variety. We spoke to an Apple representative who said that the algorithms behind the Genius feature analyze the playlists of millions of iTunes users, examining how they combine songs. They also consider iTunes Store purchases, seeing which songs are bought together. Contrary to what we expected, it doesn't create playlists by matching genres or beats-per-minute.
