iPhone

Samsung or iPhone? A screenshot worth a thousand tweets

Posted 18 Oct 2011 by Laura Scott
screenshots of maps apps on Samsung and iPhone

(Okay, maybe not a thousand. But a lot!)

So last night, I saw that John Gruber had favorited one of my Flickr photos from 2008: a screenshot of the Google Maps app on the iPhone. Hmm, what was that about?

It turns out quite a bit. I found Gruber's Daring Fireball post pointing out what appears to be Samsung's alteration and reuse of a screenshot image I created in 2008. You see, three years ago I blogged about iPhone apps I thought were a big deal — "game changers." (The post was cross-posted on BlogHer, where it got noticed.) Scroll down to see my excitement then about the ever-useful maps.app, with screenshot in question.

Browsers don't matter? Look at the longer view

Posted 17 Nov 2010 by Laura Scott
iPad screen

I love my apps!

I have an iPad and a Droid. I used to have an iPhone (before I decided I wanted my phone to also be able to make calls). I love apps! They're efficient and fast. Websites on mobile browsers can be difficult to manage. The apps can connect with internet data, but do it with a much improved user experience. No doubt. When it comes to mobile at least, a well-designed app beats a well-designed website 99% of the time. It's a new paradigm today. An interesting read is on O'Reilly, where Mac Slocum interviews Ken Yarmosh on app dominance.

But does this browsers don't matter anymore? David Card seems to think so.

Browsers don’t matter anymore….

Is it a phone or a "smartphone"?

Posted 13 Dec 2009 by Laura Scott

It's a simple question, really. What is your phone for? Making calls, or checking email/browsing the web/using apps/playing games/updating Facebook/posting to Twitter...? Of course, your smartphone should do it all, right?

But what if you had to choose?

I am ready to retire my iPhone. I love it to death. I check my email. I have apps that sync with my desktop. I have games that lull me to sleep. (Because that's what games are good for, right?) I check the weather. Read headlines. Set an alarm to wake up. Find out where the heck I am on a map.

But let's face it: The iPhone is pretty crappy as a phone.

I don't blame Apple, except to the extent that they made their initial deal with AT&T. I don't get much of any signal at my house. My calls are dropped so frequently – that is, if I can actually connect at call at all – that I have given up trying.

So I'm looking at that greener grass over the fence, over in Verizon land. I once lived in Verizon land. It wasn't so bad. I could make calls just about anywhere, even up in the mountains where nobody else could get a signal.

Getting the right things done Franklin style (almost) using OmniFocus

Posted 17 Jan 2009 by Laura Scott

Task management can be a challenge if you have a lot of stuff going on. "Urgent" things are always distracting you: the phone rings, colleagues interrupt you, a client asks for help, emails, newsletters, snail mail, IMs, Tweets....

You could be buzzing like a bee, getting a whole lot of things done, but not getting done the right things.

I would love to be using a Franklin-Covey Planner program on my Mac, but they don't make one for Mac. So the choices are:

Apps that make the iPhone and iPod touch game-changers in tech

Posted 14 Dec 2008 by Laura Scott

iPhone screenshot
The online world changed for me this year. I discovered the handheld — or rather what the handheld promises to be. I had a Palm 700p before. It was a good phone. Qwerty keyboard. Great reception. Worked just about anywhere. But after more than 2 years with the Palm, I just had to try the iPhone, the multitouch interface, the motion sensor. But I had no idea what worlds would be opened up over the months since — mostly not by Apple directly, but by the creative minds creating some applications that strike me as almost mind-blowing.

I almost didn't go for it. For many months I resisted. I'd had AT&T service before, and did not want to go back. But that GUI tempted me.

It's a good GUI, and even the awkward keyboard laid out for 9-year-old fingers is saved by the rather smart active spellcheck.

But ever since firmware 2.0, the iPhone has been something else.

Apps.

Whither Twitter? Silicon Valley businesses pressured to do business

Posted 12 Nov 2008 by Laura Scott

Every morning I reach for my iPhone to get the latest news from Bloomberg. (I'd probably go to the NY Times first, but their app is still far too unstable and slow to be of much use.) This morning, one headline jumped out at me:

Twitter Shuns Venture-Capital Money as Startup Values Plunge

Well I had to read that article. And it seems to hint at the piercing of the Silicon Valley Bubble -- not a floating bubble leading to a crash, but rather the isolation bubble, like Bubble Boy. What? Silicon Valley is Bubble Boy?

Evan Williams raised $22 million in funding for Twitter Inc., a Web site used by everyone from Britney Spears to Starbucks Corp. to Barack Obama. Sales? Those could come later -- that was, until the economy tanked.

Me not available

Posted 13 Jun 2008 by Laura Scott

When the Apple Store came back up after revamping, somewhere around the WWDC this week, I went to http://me.com and was redirected to the Apple MobileMe page.

But for the past 2 days now, me.com has been down. DNS is hell.

Unboxing the Apple iPhone

Posted 25 Mar 2008 by Laura Scott
iPhone box

Last week, after suffering through the appalling un-usability of the Blackberry 8830 "worldphone" throughout DrupalCon -- which followed more than a year suffering from my worst technology purchase ever -- I bit the bullet and swallowed my distaste of Apple's increasingly closed-and-controlling technology, and my lingering resentment of AT&T Wireless (ugh) by going into the Apple store and buying an iPhone.

Yeah, I know. I'm sooooooo late to the party.

I was drawn by the user interface, not the newly "opened" application development path that has gotten all the press. The user interface was enough.

And wow, did my interest ever pay off!

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