iPhone Application: Say Who

The iPhone 3g application, Say Who is available for anyone interested in a voice recognition application for making phone calls. This application installs very quickly, and is free. To use, you simply open the app, press the button while saying the name of the contact you wish to call, the next screen shows who it will call in 3 seconds, and if you don't press any other options, it makes the call.

This application is a good alternative to dialing the phone when driving. It comes in handy when you are calling people you don't very regularly. I have my favorites setup so for those people, it's not any faster to use the Say Who application. But for those other 140 people not on my favorites list, this application is very helpful.

You will need to familiarize yourself with how you entered your friends names in your phone. I know for some of my contacts I use first and last names, just first names, just last names, or nicknames. Once you use Say Who you start to remember how your contacts are stored in your iPhone.

Shortly after installing Say Who my iPhone applications wouldn't open correctly. I have about 10 on my iPhone and not one would open. This isn't the first time this has happened, but I did have to delete all my apps and reistall them. They all work fine now. Just something to be aware of.

iPhone Application: Loopt

For all you iPhone users, there is a pretty cool app called Loopt available for free!

This iPhone application Loopt tracks your location and shares it with your friends who have the application on their iPhone. I really like the idea and have a 10 friends who also use it so far. It's very accurate and will show each friend on a map or in a list displaying what streets they're on and how far they are from you. Each user can customize their profile with a picture as well.

From each friends profile page on Loopt, you can call, text, ping, comment, and my favorite, get directions to their location. This is where I see this being the most useful. Essentially, you'd never need to call and have someone give you directions again. You would simply look them up on your Loopt application, find their location, and have Loopt map the directions to your friend.

You can change your "What's Up?" message to let friends know what you're up to similar to a "status" update on Facebook which you can set to link up with each other. Under the settings tab, you can set your location settings to one of 3 choices:

1. Share with all of my friends
2. Share with some friends
3. Hide from everybody

One feature that I don't use on Loopt is Loopt Mix. This feature lets you create a custom profile to connect with Loopt users who aren't in your address book(stranger), who may share similar interests. Loopt doesn't share your phone number or your exact location. You have to click on "I Accept, Turn ON Loopt Mix" to enable this feature.

iPhone Update Finally Here!!!!!

So it looks like Apple has come through and provided some fixes to frequent iPhone problems. Update 2.2 is now available and I recommend everyone download and install it ASAP. I'll review this update in more detail soon. But for now, enjoy these features!

• Street View now available on Google Maps
• Fixed dropped and failed call issues
• Safari updates
• Podcasts
• Etc.

There is already information on the updates still to come so be on the lookout for more updates.

ATT 3G Network Review Part 2

In a previous post I went through some of the noticeable problems with ATT's 3G service for the new iPhones. My initial review wasn't very good and unfortunately, this one is going to be worse.

Since the first review, I've gotten feedback from more users in more cities that are experiencing the same problems. During peak usage hours (5-10pm) users are experiencing "Failed Calls" which is what is displayed on the iPhone when a call is dropped, over 10% of the time within the first 2 minutes of a conversation. The updated cities list which I've tested and gotten feedback from are as follows: St. Louis, Kansas City, Chicago, New York, Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Richmond, and Austin. That's 10 cities in 9 states.

The iPhone users love all the applications, ipod, GPS, and internet features. BUT IT IS TERRIBLE AT MAKING AND ACCEPTING PHONE CALLS, which is arguable the most simple, but most important feature of a cell phone. I continue to check the web and company website to look for updates on their network. I've gotten my phone looked at twice to make sure I didn't have a defective phone before I bashed the company, and it checked out perfectly fine. I encourage all feedback and testimonials on this problem. Hopefully as time goes by, ATT can straighten out these issues.

Urbanspoon iPhone Application

The newest application I've tried for the iPhone 3G is Urbanspoon. Urbanspoon is designed to find restaurants near you. It uses a graphic interface similar to a slot machine. Based on your location, it will find nearby cities, and a diverse pool of restaurants to choose from. The search fields are city, type, and price range. You simply enter your location, shake your phone to start the "slot machine" style search, and it will find you a restaurant. The 3 criteria spin until they land on something. You can make one constant by "locking" that field and the other 2 will spin until they find something.

It actually has been very useful this last weekend as I was looking to find some restaurants that I hadn't been to before. I was able to find a lot of restaurants I hadn't heard of that had great reviews. Urbanspoon also lists recent reviews to the restaurants it finds. The best part I think, is that you can search by price range. I personally like to have a good idea of what things cost before entering the restaurant.

Google Maps on iPhone 3G

Google maps comes with all new iPhone's. I really got to use it this last time I was out of town and was very impressed. Especially with the GPS feature. I was traveling with by business partner who has a Blackberry and was comparing the GPS features. Now from the beginning the Blackberry seemed to be much better. But after a couple tries, we started to notice that Google Maps was sending us on a better route most of the time. Now, the Blackberry might have been sending us on a shorter route, but for the most part, the iPhone sent us on streets that made a whole lot more sense. Blackberry's GPS was constantly sending us down streets with a speed limit of 20 MPH and lots of stop signs. The iPhone or Google Maps, was sending us on routes that were much quicker and driver friendly. I can't speak for all users of both GPS systems, but during my last trip, the iPhone consistently outperformed the Blackberry.

Not So Hot 3G Network

The 3G network that ATT and Apple have been boasting about is not stacking up to the hype. Any user of the new 3G iPhone can tell you that they are experiencing more than just dropped calls. Often, iPhone users are unable to place calls, along with having their current conversations “fail.” The current speculation is that there are not enough satellites to hold the larger than anticipated 3G network of users. At times, it can be so bad that iPhone 3G users are not able to place calls for periods of up to 30 minutes. At first I thought it might be a regional issue. However, I experienced the problems initially in St. Louis, my friends in Chicago are having the same problems, and during my trip to the San Francisco Bay area and Phoenix, the issues were still present. I’ve had my phone looked at by the Genius Bar, and completed all necessary updates. Hopefully this problem will be addressed soon. Otherwise, I would expect ATT and Apple to get a lot of angry customers most likely resulting in discounted monthly statements. I was unable to find any sources discussing ATT’s plans to beef-up the 3G network. Hopefully they have a plan to address the recent problems. I’ll continue to look for reliable information about the current issues and hopefully get some insight as to when the problems will be fixed and we can continue to use our 3G iPhones without major service interruption.

If any readers feel these statements are false, or exaggerated, please comment on your experience.

iPhone Application Ads

For those of you iPhone users, I'm sure you've noticed your applications are being updated rapidly. That's because they are incorporating advertisements to your favorite iPhone apps like Bloomberg and Pandora internet radio. Sportacular is the only iPhone app that I have which hasn't been updated to display unwanted advertisements. Now all of these apps are free so we can't be too picky. However, if they start to make the iPhone run slowly, or have any sort of problems, they'll need to remove the unwanted application ads.

Spotacular's most recent update made the application better without the advertisments. You can now make a list of your favorite teams which displays their scores on the front page of the app. Sportacular is definitely one of the better apps and I appreciate them not following the new trend of iPhone apps putting banner ads on my phone.

iPhone Application: Bloomberg

This is the first application I put on my iPhone 3G. Bloomberg provides financial information and is a great resource for investors, financial professionals, and anyone interested in the capital markets, or related news. The Bloomberg App lets you pick stocks you want to watch and gives you current quote information, related news, and performance charts. You also have access to international equity, bond, currency, bond, and commodity markets/indices.

The Bloomberg app would not make much sense for someone who didn't have a strong need or desire to be informed of current market conditions on more than a daily basis. This is where the iPhone can really compete with the Blackberry's that business people have been set on since their creation. As far as I know, no other phone has anything close to this informative for financial information, and therefore, would make the iPhone 3G a great option. The Bloomberg application for the iPhone is free as well.

iPhone Application: Shazam

I have been using the iPhone Shazam application for about 2 months now and thought I would write a bit about it.

The Shazam application for the iPhone "listens" to music playing and then sends you the artist, title, and album of the song! Its absolutely awesome. I cannot believe how much I use. The application takes about 15-30 seconds to listen to the music playing, and about another 15 seconds to send you the song information. It works incredibly well also. I've used it in bars, in the car, during a commercial playing a song I like, during the credits of a movie, and more. I can honestly say, there were only 2 times it hasn't been able to identify the song I was requesting and I've probably used it over 100 times.

Once you have "tagged" a song, meaning you've identified it with Shazam, you can quickly preview the song on youtube, send the tag to your friends, or buy the song directly to your iPhone from iTunes. Its truely amazing how streamlined the who process is and the best part is the Shazam application is completely free!