Archive for the ‘Apps’ Category

Philips Hue lighting system not as stupid as I originally thought….

Posted: February 12, 2013 by Troy Saxton-Getty in Accessories, Apps, dropSKIP? What???, Fun Tech!, iOS
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Philips Hue lighting system not as stupid as I originally thought…

By Troy Saxton-Getty

Ok, I am usually the first to admit when I am dead wrong when I call technology stupid and find out I am wrong.

This is clearly the case with the Philips Hue internet lighting system. I have been making fun of it for some time now since seeing it in just about every Apple Store on the west coast.

I can usually justify buying anything tech but for nearly 5 months I couldn’t come up with a good enough reason to plunk down 199.00 USD for the 3 light starter kit.(plus 59.00 USD for each additional light bulb).

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I was dead wrong… this thing is the coolest useless fun gadget I have played with in a long time.

You can set just about any combination of light color, use your own photos and match a color for each bulb or group them together to make it a single color for each.

You can set turn-on timers, fade out count-down to off modes and even alarms.

Imagine waking up to artificial sunrise based on a sunrise photo you took at the beach.

These little guys have plenty of presets and some quick pick modes too, or make just about any combination of bright or dim color, even a simple bathroom nightlight.

Setup was simple, plug into my wired switch, the wall for power, screw in the lights, turn on the normal light switch, download the app, press the button on the little puck controller and you are up and running.

If you turn off the wall switch manually and back on, each light defaults to a regular fluorescent light equivalent.

Load the app and take the light back over with a simple button press.

The price is a bit steep, but you can amazingly enough, instantly change the rooms mode. Including a study bright light blue hue and a mode optimized for reading.

Gorgeous color reproduction, I feel stupid making fun of this,  I absolutely love it.

For a few bucks in the app store you can pick up a few 3rd party disco light controllers that time the lights to music automatically for a fun disco effect, including black and white fast firing strobes.

I added 9 additional lights in about 10 minutes and edited some of the presets to include the new lights.

Create a web account and you can sync your handy light presets across devices.

Ok, it’s stupid to drop about 500 USD on the kit plus extra bulbs but I still cant stop playing with it…….what is it, after 3am, sweet!!!

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Nike+ Fuel Band does NOT track sleep

Posted: February 11, 2013 by Troy Saxton-Getty in Android, Apps, dropSKIP? What???, Fun Tech!, Health & Fitness, iOS
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By Troy Saxton-Getty
2/11/2013

The Nike Plus Fuel Band unlike most of the other competing products does not track sleep specific information like the FitBit, Jawbone UP or Zeo.

So far in our long term daily use and comparison, the Jawbone UP wins hands down with the detail of sleep analysis it provides.

You do have to remember to click the end button to put it into sleep mode. A task easily forgotten for the first few times you want details on your quality of sleep.

Nike+ FuelBand will help you lose weight and get in shape even if you don’t want too!

Posted: January 6, 2013 by Troy Saxton-Getty in Accessories, Apps, dropSKIP? What???, Fun Tech!, iOS, Watch bands
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By Troy Saxton-Getty

Whether you are wanting to track very light workouts, even informally or you are hard core athletically, Nike+ Fuel Band is a fantastic tool that just works. iPhone, iPad, web interfaces. They all work together to show you just about everything you want to know. The energy expending algorithm is very accurate. It turns the whole process into a fun and competitive game against yourself or others in your social graph. I am recovering from a significant back injury and subsequent surgery and use the Fuel Band with my rehab and physical therapy.

Tracking Calories expended, steps taken (distance traveled) and a combo Nike generated “Fuel” burn value make it a fun challenge to reach your goals and to continue to increase them.

You need to have one of these, even if you don’t workout at all, you will find yourself trying to take more steps and burn more calories day after day regardless, almost magically. Not only is it sporty looking, it just works! Press the single button, you cycle through Fuel, Cals, Steps and an accurate clock in a comfy little wrist band. Press the button longer and it starts auto-sync over Bluetooth with your idevice. In a few seconds it transfers over all the data collected since the last update and your app and web account are automatically updated.

Open the band with a simple button press and you can plug it into a regular USB port. Even without the included cable. It will charge from completely dead in about 45 minutes, but my full weekly use takes about 15-20 minutes to top off the battery, soon as you plug it in It also transfers all data so Bluetooth isn’t needed unless you are like me and can’t wait to see the days activity level but don’t want to take it off to plug it in to charge.

I recommend buying it from the Apple store. Each Apple person carries a sizing band and it makes it really easy to pick the correct size before you buy it and get home and it doesn’t fit. Do this step! It comes in 3 colors; clear / white and smoke / black (these two are cool if you like to see the internal electronic components or you can get the black rubber one which isn’t transparent at all. They all included a small spacer link to expand or shrink it in size slightly and a little simple tool to add/remove the included spacer.

I’ve personally used mine for well over two months and I’ve helped 10 plus friends get started with their own.

First, it’s very accurate, second, you will be surprised how many miles you walk and calories you burn in an average day, next thing you know, you are trying to beat the day before and so it begins, you even start thinking about drinking water and eating healthier.

Get one of these little magical devices, it really makes a difference!!

Thank you Nike!

Brookstone Rover – App controlled wireless spy tank with night vision – eh?

Posted: December 24, 2011 by Troy Saxton-Getty in Apps, dropSKIP? What???, Fun Tech!
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Brookstone Rover – App controlled wireless spy tank with night vision – eh?
by Troy Saxton-Getty

Of course our jobs here at dropSKIP are very tough, extreme testing of mobile gadgets, long term in-the-real-world testing of personal electronics and it wouldn’t be a complete job without the very tough job of playing with, um, I mean, “testing” of a tracked drone spy bot…

Yes, the Brookstone Rover! If you have an iPhone or iPad you can now control a little tank with a day and night vision camera wirelessly. Yes, over wifi the app lets you completely operate this little guy perfectly.

Brookstone Rover

Brookstone Rover

As soon as you open the box you are almost ready to run, simply flip it over and install the included batteries, you will need one flat tip screwdriver, flip it back over, screw on the included rubber antenna with your hands, install the app from iTunes for either the iPhone or iPad, turn on the tank, pick the tank’s unique SSID on the iPhone/iPad  and you are ready to go, about 3 minutes from box opening to speeding down the hallway accosting your friends at work or family at home.

Immediately, our first bummer moment was when we realized you had to connect your iPad/iPhone to the tanks unique and unchangeable SSID. What a bummer, this changes so much of the fun we had planned for this little guy. If you could run it over your work or home wifi you could control it on much greater ranges. The manual says 200ft, 100ft with walls, I would say it’s about 40-60ft with standard house walls at best.

Outdoors it was quite a bit better, but it’s way more fun indoors and if it ran over a wifi access point you could cover the entire building where wifi was present, additionally you could control it over VPN in your home or office remotely, what fun and how down right freaky cool would that be!

We have some limited experience with the ROVIO, which can return itself to the charging base station and can be run remotely over home/work wifi, but this isn’t even close to that. Don’t get me wrong, its a $149, now $99 dollar bundle of fun.

The Box says it all

The Box says it all

It looks huge on the box but it is really much smaller then it looks.

We found that deep carpet, hardwood floors, sliding door tracks and concrete outdoors all worked well with the Rover, it actually motors along over just about anything except if you have dog that constantly wants to eat it.

Rover attacking Rover

Rover attacking Rover

This little tank was worth the price of admission for all the fun you can have messing with the family pet, but this one has really sharp teeth, he’s fast and doesn’t mind eating some plastic parts.

The App takes some getting used to on controls, it can use tilt and angle or you can use the on-screen buttons for forward / backwards of the left and right track. Additionally the Rover can take pictures via the app as well as you can turn on/off the night vision.

Rover attacking Rover POV shot

Rover attacking Rover POV shot

At this point we had not figured out that the camera could be moved to a higher incline, so it is adjustable somewhat. However it the camera had been slightly aimed up, the dog would have scared the crap out of us!

The night vision works really well, here is a shot of the laundry room in total darkness:

Rover Night Vision Camera

Rover Night Vision Camera

The Day time camera shots are sometimes blurry depending on ambient light, here is a semi-lit hallway shot:

Hallway camera shot, driver view

Hallway camera shot, driver view

Right on the app you can switch between tilt / angle control or button control mode.

Evidently you can program routes and such, but we never got that far, it was plenty fun enough to cruise around the house manually checking stuff out and freaking out the occupants.

We had no trouble sitting in bed and driving the Rover all around the back yard and climbing back over the sliding glass door curb to get back into the house.

Rover Outdoors

Rover Outdoors

Although not water resistant, the little unit is sealed up enough the cruise around damp areas and drive through a little water like a rain soaked deck etc.

What we liked:
iPhone and iPad app is full featured
Camera is decent quality but definitely standard def
Night Vision works pretty well
Simple to setup

What we didn’t like:
No Android app
The wifi is a special SSID and it runs in ad hoc mode, direct connection between app and tank meaning you can’t control it beyond the iPad/iPhone direct radio range.
runs on Alkaline batteries, it would be tough to unscrew both screws on battery cover for rechargeable use
Much shorter range then expected indoors
Can’t recharge itself like a Roomba or ROVIO
The Rover isn’t self operating, it can’t do anything without human direction via the app except for some simple routes etc.

Would we recommend it? For ages 4 and up, yes, for the price, it’s a fun toy, but it is just a toy…

We would also recommend it for office madness as well as for the person who has everything, as long as they don’t have this, you can buy it for them as a gift!

Battery life? Unsure at this point, still running on the crap brand of included battery a few days later. Hey, maybe we can have it fight the Roomba vacuum iRobot?

iTunes Match has it’s limitations, 25,000!

Posted: November 24, 2011 by Troy Saxton-Getty in Apps, Fun Tech!
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iTunes Match has it’s limitations, 25,000!
By Troy Saxton-Getty

We have been waiting patiently for iTunes Match to go live since it was announced.

Tonight we fired up the Mac Mini which has our entire dropSKIP music collection, about 57,000 tracks from original CD ‘s from nearly 1400 artists.

We couldn’t wait to get the 256k AAC match to all the older CD’s ripped at 128k.

As cool as iTunes Match is, it turns out that it has a 25,000 song limitation.

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We did update a smaller laptop iTunes library with 7500+ tracks,any of which are from CD and the matching worked flawlessly, the small remaining unmatched tracks uploaded to the cloud.

To test the theory we went to one of our test Apple TV units and logged in and immediately started playing the iCloud based tracks and noticed they are available on the iPad immediately as well.

Our only beef was iTunes Match required a more secure password update to our iCloud account, it was already 8 characters with numbers but they now require at least one upper case letter. This required us to reconfigure all the test Apple gear. It’s probably for the better, but it still torqued us a bit.

In closing, iTunes Match is pretty slick! Can’t wait to see the adjustments they make as the technology matures, hopefully we can send our 57,000+ tracks up someday! The bummer for us now is we have to sort through and pick the albums and tracks we want in the cloud vs. just putting it all up seamlessly. If you have less than 25k original ripped tracks, you are all set!

Happy Matching!

The coolest most useless product we’ve ever tested… Blackberry Playbook

Posted: August 17, 2011 by Troy Saxton-Getty in Apps, Blackberry Playbook, Blackberry Tablet OS, dropSKIP? What???
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The coolest most useless product we’ve ever tested… Blackberry Playbook
By Troy Saxton-Getty

We’ve been fans or Research In Motion (RIM) since the early days of the RIM 950, as corporate technology leaders we’ve also been responsible for deploying well over 10,000 RIM devices to the corporate citizens we’ve supported. RIM has a track record lasting well over a decade of delivering amazing and incredibly useful devices, until now. Something big has changed at RIM, something that continues to drive their loyal and long term fans away.

When the Blackberry Playbook finally shipped, we picked one up hoping to see RIM getting back into the competitive game, we even gave them some slack for releasing early without several key capabilities being natively on the Playbook which everyone else had out of the box.

Playbook Packaging

Playbook Packaging

Way back in the early days of Playbook we heard their Co-CEO say they would be delivering a mail, contact and calendar client from RIM later this “summer” and with that we cut them a bit more slack. Well, summer is nearly over, kids are going back to school, people are buying tablet computers but I can’t find one technology friend who is buying a Blackberry Playbook for personal use, or to deploy in a company as a connected device. Why?? Because it is the coolest most useless product we’ve ever tested. We love this thing, in fact, we would be willing to say, if it had an open app ecosystem and a mail, calendar and contact client, it might even be our favorite, but it doesn’t and for that it is useless to most everyone buying tablets. Even the few folks we know who bought Playbook have either returned the Playbook or turned it into a digital picture frame. We all joke that every once in a while, we check for a native or 3rd party email, calendar and contact client. People come to these devices for those basic capabilities that untether us from the PC and stay for the extra stuff, you’ve got it all wrong RIM, but worse, you think you have it all right. You are better off putting a big rubber case on it and selling them to kids.

Every day at the shop, faithfully we pick it up, turn it on, open the AppWorld app hoping to see either a native productivity client or one from a 3rd party. Out of the thousands of people we interact with, we only know one likes his Playbook, because he is one of the few who still has a Blackberry mobile phone, if you do, the product will sync up and give the mail, calendar and contact view the phone has natively… Even then, my one Playbook friend tells me he is envious of the Apple, Android and even Microsoft App stores because the Playbook has a small collection of nearly useless apps for the serious or even recreational tablet user.

RIM, you guys are intentionally or unintentionally making yourselves irrelevant in the competitive landscape, the Blackberry Playbook remains the coolest most useless product we’ve ever tested, what a uselessly cool product!

Come on guys, at least make an effort.. let the developers of AMail or one of the other email clients at least have their product available to us instead of blocking them on AppWorld… Someone wise once told me “showing up is half the success battle”, well, you are not even showing up….

Playbook, Still no native email, calendar or contact client….really?

Posted: August 12, 2011 by Troy Saxton-Getty in Apps, Blackberry Playbook, Blackberry Tablet OS, dropSKIP? What???, Tablets
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Playbook, Still no native email, Calendar or contact manager client….really?
By Troy Saxton-Getty

We had a lot of hope early-on for the Playbook, our test unit has been lugged around for a few months now but it gets the least amount of real world use due to one glaring and primary fact; NO NATIVE EMAIL, CALENDAR OR CONTACT CLIENT, Still!

Research In Motion’s (RIM) Co-CEO promised a native client this summer, we still haven’t seen it. Unless you have a Blackberry linked to the Playbook, you are left only with a web browser email experience. RIM says “Our web experience is so great that you don’t need one…” oh really? I bet you don’t read your work or personal email on the Playbook as your main source. (We can do this on our Xoom, iPad(s), Galaxy Tab etc)

RIM, there is a reason most folks don’t use the email web experience on their desktops or laptops for as their main or regular email experience, they are all very different, they each require logging in, different user names, passwords and navigation. In-the-real-world most people want an email client, same look and feel for one to many different email accounts. If given the choice, most folks prefer to work in a native email client.

Back in early May of this year (2011), RIM demonstrated their own native email client for non-Blackberry users (if you own a Blackberry, it very nicely links up and gives you email, calendar and contacts support) Why is it we don’t have it yet? Did you forget how many Android and iPhone users are out there? Many of these folks could buy a Playbook, NOT!

RIM Playbook

RIM Playbook

 

The more interesting thing is RIM’s AppWorld store has actually blocked a few fairly amazing native email applications from being released, I just don’t get it. I really like the unit, the screen, size and feel, battery life etc., it is really pretty nice, but it is getting zero real-world use from us due mainly to the native client issue.

If you are pretty technical, you can use the “side-loading” technique like a developer and get a great product like aMail loaded. RIM has blocked several completing applications from their own AppWorld store, browsers, calendar tools and email clients so you can’t load them the simple way like everyone else, through the app store.

Open ecosystems win, or at least ones with good judgement to allow competing apps… RIM, this is plain stupid!

We tried using the webmail experiences for Yahoo, GMail, multiple Exchange email accounts and Apple’s MobileMe, while it can be done (except Apple’s MobileMe, forget it, it is totally unusable) it isn’t something you will be happy with for long, as an exception, yes, but regular use, even with short cuts and auto-login, it won’t be the tablet you pick up if you have another choice.

Give us what every other smartphone or tablet has, a built-in native client for email, calendar and contacts, or at least let some creative developers give us another set of choices.

RIM, you have won the dropSKIP official – “YOU SUCK” award…. we want our money back…

Hang in there aMail, you are our only hope Obiwan!

FindMeSpot’s – Spot Connect – Our experience after a trip off the grid

Posted: May 13, 2011 by Troy Saxton-Getty in Android, Apps, dropSKIP? What???, GPS Devices, iOS, Operating System, Personal Communicators
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FindMeSpot’s – Spot Connect – Our experience after a trip off the grid
by Troy Saxton-Getty

So who wouldn’t want a device that will let you send text messages from anywhere on the globe?

That is what we thought when we decided to purchase the Spot Connect from FindMeSpot, having owned both previous generations of Spot devices, it seemed a no-brainer to give the Spot Connect a try.

FindMeSpot Products

FindMeSpot Products

Previous Spot devices we’ve used extensively are ruggedized and self-contained handheld units, the Spot Connect however, is a smaller module that requires you to use your iPhone or Android 2.x smartphone as the control interface. All modes require the smartphone except the Spot Connect by itself can deliver a 911 message. (OK, HELP, Pre-defined and Custom messages require the smartphone Bluetooth connectivity)

Spot Tracker - Connect

Spot Connect next to a sticky note for size reference

These devices are the difference between life or death in the event of a tough situation.  Having spent years in Search & Rescue I can’t tell you how quick and easy it is to find someone with a tracking device vs. not having one. A few hundred dollar investment means you can be located within seconds of pressing the HELP or 911 button.  A rescue is effort is just the travel time to you. This completely changes many of the risk factors. In fact, most of the folks who organize rides in the desert southwest and Baja Mexico require riders to have them. www.BajaBoundMoto.com and www.riptothetip.com

Recently we tested the Spot Connect with our Search & Rescue group, BajaSAR, on a ride from Tecate on the California / Mexican border which ended in Cabo San Lucas, about 1500 miles of off-road from the top to the bottom of Baja California, MX. Although the 40+ riders and chase trucks have the standard Spot devices, our BajaSAR airplane and Chase Helicopter carried the Spot Connect (in addition to our regular Spot devices)

BajaSAR & Chase One

BajaSAR & Chase One

As you can see by the terrain in the photo, this is a 1000 mile strip of land with very little infrastructure, a perfect place to have hella fun flying, riding and racing and a great opportunity to test the new Spot Connect.

Early thoughts and experience in the real-world:

Using the Spot Connect required you to plan and think about some additional things, first managing two devices, your smartphone and the Spot Connect, meaning, they both have to have enough battery to talk to each other as well as the Spot Connect has to send a signal 22,000 miles into space so it has to be equipped with high-end Lithium batteries.

Lithium Batteries

Lithium Batteries

The folks at Spot are very clear in their documentation for all of their devices, ONLY USE THESE BATTERIES, if you use alkaline, rechargables or other regular batteries, even a fresh pack barely musters up enough energy to send the signal to the tracking satellites, you might be able to get a signal out, but they won’t last very long, in fact, these devices eat batteries, even the high energy lithiums.

Next, all of the Spot devices require you to setup your calling lists via the web from the comfort of your cozy internet connection, it is pretty straight forward, but you should definitely plan to do this before the trip and test it, twice. You will be setting up notification to Text/SMS and email addresses, you can build multiple profiles which make it easy for trips with a list of folks you want to send status updates or ask for assistance from.

With a clear view of the sky you can send: OK, HELP, (Custom Message for Spot 2) or 911, all but the 911 selection update your friends, family and support. 911 updates the GEOS Alliance tracking center if you purchased the annual subscription for 911 worldwide assistance.

All of the devices have a tracking mode whereas once set, they will update your location approximately every 10 minutes, you can share the website map before you depart and folks can follow along with you as you progress on your trek. This however comes at a cost to the battery life. We recommend carrying several spare Lithium batteries in your pack.

Spot Connect requires your smartphone to be charged and connected via Bluetooth as well.

The Spot Connect goes further by giving you a much richer interface via your smartphone with the SpotConnect application.

SpotConnect App

SpotConnect App

The Spot Connect application works fairly well, it will not allow you to do anything unless the Spot Connect has an established Bluetooth connection with the Spot Connect device. Once connected, the application is pretty straight forward as you can see below.

Spot Connect Contact Screen

Spot Connect Contact Screen

If you select Check-in/OK you will see the detailed screen with your additional communications options.

Spot Connect Check-in/OK Screen

Spot Connect Check-in/OK Screen

From the Check-in/OK screen you have to pick a contact list to send to: this isn’t easy to do on the fly, you can have multiple contact groups and a contact group can have 1 to 10 people in it, but you have to set it up in advance on the web, there is no way to currently change this while in the app outside of selecting the previously created contact group. Providing you have some form of internet connection you could modify these contact groups after you depart, but during our trip only a few hotels had usable wifi and doing this on the FindMeSpot website over a mobile device isn’t very easy at all.

Additionally, you can add your Facebook and Twitter accounts (setup while you have working internet) once configured, you simply select the icon and your update also posts to one or both social sites with your location detail and message.

A few irritations:

The Contact setup and changes requires internet, I get it, this data is all hosted at Spot and if you don’t have internet, how can you change list members or pre-defined messages.

The App always tries to send the message 3 times, about 10 minutes apart, I get it, the unit has to draw from the batteries and recharge the radio because the transmit requires a big burst of juice… and 3 times is better then 1, however our tests were cancelled after the first transmit, it worked every time and updated my Facebook and Twitter accounts perfectly.

You have to sync the app with your account at least once before you lose internet connectivity

If you have even a drop of connectivity, the application delays while trying to get the contact information from the Web to the app vs. using the sync’ed copy, this results in a time-out in several places in the application.

All functions but 911 offline if your smartphone battery is dead, I would like the other basic buttons, even if it means making it a tiny bit larger.

You can’t receive any messages, but that should have been obvious.

Did we mention these things eat batteries?

Things we liked:

It worked, it let us put up to 41 characters in a custom message each time we decided to send.

It worked from the airplane, helicopter, trucks and bikes while moving along quicky.

Facebook & Twitter integration really worked well, it was easy for friends and family to know where I was and I could post the custom message each time.

Small, easy to carry, lights are easy to see, once you understand the flashing sequence, RTFM (Technical term, look it up)… -g

Conclusion:

We really liked this unit, the 3rd generation FindMeSpot device is fantastic actually once you get past the few items pointed out above, but hey, you are in the middle of nowhere and you want to post on social networks, update friends, send a custom message each time, vs a canned message, HELP or OK. This will take a bit of one-time setup, but well worth it.

Carry enough batteries and then buy another extra pack, just in case. Subscribe carefully as there are several options to purchase in addition to the device on an annual basis.

The custom messages aren’t cheap, but its the lowest cost easy way to do something like this… buy the “refillable” option.

Just in case you love this Baja, flying and riding stuff, here is the link to all the pics we took: http://bit.ly/kKt1iz

www.findmespot.com

FindMeSpot – SPOT Connect, Send Text/Email via Satellite

Posted: April 28, 2011 by Troy Saxton-Getty in Apps, dropSKIP? What???, GPS Devices, Personal Communicators
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FindMeSpot Tracker – SPOT Connect: initial setup & testing
by Troy Saxton-Getty

I purchased the new FindMeSpot Connect satellite messenger today, I am going to spend the next week or so in Baja Mexico with BajaSAR (Search & Rescue) where 99% of the Baja Peninsula doesn’t have mobile phone signal except in a few towns and tourist spots.

This small device, a bit smaller footprint than a regular sized sticky note, will allow an iPhone or iPad to connect to it via Bluetooth and send pre-defined messages as well as up to 41 character text/email messages. (and of course HELP and SOS-911)

Spot Tracker - Connect

Spot Tracker - Connect

The SPOT Connect was $149 USD at REI, the only place I could find it in stock, retail price appears to be $169 USD on http://www.findmespot.com, the company’s website.

To fully activate all features except Roadside & Marine Assistance it was $230 for the year, plus you have to pick a message option.  As you can see from the options screen below, there are quite a few more options than a standard Spot or Spot2 device. (Click it to enlarge photo)

My Spot Devices

My Spot Devices

Included now are Facebook, Twitter and Fire Eagle (location service from Yahoo) Social networks. You can toggle each time you send if you want to post the message to Facebook and/or Twitter with your location link.

Part of the $230 annual subscription is the “Follow Me” option for $49 dollars which tracks your progress real-time and updates a Google Maps site every 10 minutes with your location. This is a great way for friends and family to follow along on  your trek vs. a single update manually. You have an option to have it “reload” the messaging pack when you use the pre-purchased quantity, this is simple and automatic.

Spot Tracker Connect

Spot Tracker Connect

The unit links to your iPhone or iPad via Bluetooth, you download the free app from the AppStore and setup your contacts, limited to 10 contact groups, each group can have one or more contacts in it.

The setup can be a text message and/or email from a list of pre-setup canned messages or you can actually type in up to 41 characters and it will send the live message in a few seconds.

Entered text messages cost .50 cents or you can by a pack at a discount.

Messaging Pack Options

Messaging Pack Options

Clearly this isn’t cheap, but if you have zero mobile communications options and  you are in the middle of nowhere and you need to communicate, it’s worth it.

This provides a medium cost option vs. a Satellite Phone or a Sat Data Modem option which are both much more expensive.

I am heading to Baja Mexico in the morning, I will thoroughly test this unit as my only form of communications from the airplane, the ground, chase trucks, bikes and buggies.

Stay tuned for a full report! btw, Google “2011 Monster Energy Rip to the Tip”, 30+ riders (including some big named Pro’s) from Tecate on the California border will ride to Cabo in a few days, mostly on crazy tough single track trails, 1400+ miles…. Watch some of the videos… We will be flying search and rescue and testing the SPOT Connect!

The Great Plethora of Uses to the iPhone 4′s 5MegaPixel Camera!

Posted: March 14, 2011 by mjlawson in Apps, ATT, iOS, iPhone4-ATT, iPhone4-Verizon, Operating System, Phones
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If you have an iPhone4, you’ve probably noticed the great quality of the iPhone’s 5 megapixel camera, 720p HD video recording, with its great detail and color, along with the HD Retina display. Photos looks great on it! Though there will always be that photo that never looked great because of shaky hands, low-lighting, etc. The good news is there are huge amounts of apps on photo editing that I have used to drastically improve those photos, and share them between friends. My favorite app and one of the most popular called “Camera +” ($0.99) can show you how far the iPhone camera potential can go. You can use “anti-shake”, separate exposure and focus, along with being able to upload to: Facebook, Twitter, Picasa, Flickr, and of course, send through email. You can also edit the pictures for quick color temperature control, cropping, rotating, dramatic color effects, making your photos look very artistic.

If you want to go even further, try using apps like “Filterstorm” ($3.99), which is definitely a more advanced photo editing app. You can use the same tools that are on Photoshop like: curves, exposure, sharpness, white balance, rotate, adding borders, and there are even more details into more filters that are available.

These and many more apps really show the potential of photography on the iPhone4, where it becomes more of basic digital camera than a simple phone camera. I, as a digital photographer, really notice the quality difference when editing photos on computer applications like Photoshop, and have tested to see what an iPhone image zoomed in at 100% on Photoshop looks like, and well, the quality is exceptional for such a small device. You can’t compare it to a real professional camera such as ones by Nikon and Canon DSLRs, but if you’re really going for the photography aspect of a phone, the iPhone4 really has its potential!

When you get into the HD Video recording on the iPhone4, the story changes, the quality is much less. If you have recorded a well-lit outside video with an iPhone4 and have only viewed it on your phone’s screen, it’s deceiving. Thinking that this would keep me away from buying a separate video camera was wrong. When you view any of the videos on a computer screen or TV, the quality is very disappointing – grainy, loss of quality and sharpness, VERY shaky, audio is “okay”. So, while it says 720p HD, it’s true with the pixel amount, but the quality is just lame. If you’re outside on a sunny day and using a tripod, it will be good, but anything less than that is unexceptional to be called HD. One thing though, is that if you just keep the videos to be viewed on your phone, then it is perfectly fine, but I would recommend if you want a real HD camera, you can purchase a “Flip” cam, or a Sony “Bloggie”, which are inexpensive, portable, and produce great quality videos.

One thing that is a major PRO for the iPhone’s video camera is that you can upload, edit, and share the video almost anywhere! You can edit the video as a quick trim in the camera app, or for free can get this app called “Splice”, which allows you to upload separate music tracks from your music library, add transitions, text, add effects like slow-motion, speed-up, crop, and trim. Then export in HD still. You can also, after video is finished, upload right from the phone to YouTube or send through email. You can only upload to YouTube in HD on wi-fi only, if your on 3G it will only allow you to upload in standard quality. But the upload is simple and fast. If you have the FaceBook app, you can upload HD video on Wi-Fi or 3G, but if on 3G it will take an extended period of time, drain more battery, and eat-up your data plan. If you purchases Apple’s own “iMovie” app, the editing goes even further with more options like adding photos, video, music, sounds, transitions, animations, and pre-made animated graphics. You will also be able to upload to YouTube, Facebook, vimeo, CNNiReport, or save to iTunes to edit later in the Mac’s “iMovie” computer application when you next sync your phone!

So while the iPhone4′s HD video camera isn’t the greatest, it’s extremely handy, and the pictures look amazing! Here are some sample photos that I took on the iPhone and edited only on the iPhone!

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