So you see what it takes to get me to write. There have been many things I wanted to write about over the last little bit. But I've been so doggone busy. The Google Reader imminent shutdown really made me want to write. But this... this makes me write. You can see what's near and dear to my hard: Podcasts.
The internet is abuzz with the the news of Podcasts 1.2. <a href="http://www.macworld.com/article/2031574/hands-on-podcasts-1-2-is-the-one-apple-should-have-shipped.html">Chris Breen has a good rundown</a> of the new app. And I agree that this is the version that should have shipped in that it is far better than the previous app. But it still has some serious flaws that make it not worth using for me. Believe me, I want to use it, I want it to work. I was genuinely excited for the update. The addition of playlists stations is nice and brings it on par with Instacast in that way. And the stilly and quaint reel to reel playback screen is gone, for better or worse (I sort of liked it, but it was a wee bit hard to use).
Here is my biggest frustration. The reason I want this to work is because I spend as much time working at my Macintosh computer as I do out and about with my iOS device. iTunes, with which my phone syncs every night when I plug it in, has podcast subscription capabilities. But I rarely plug my phone directly into my computer. It syncs overnight and so podcasts could sync that way, but I might work at my computer for a couple hours, then head out in my car and want to pick up my podcasts where I left off. Without a physical sync this was impossible. And what if I subscribe to a new podcast on one of the devices? It's cable (or Wi-Fi sync) time to get everything on the same page.
Apple is touting full subscription sync for this version of the app, but here, as I have found, is the rub: that subscription syncing is only between iOS devices, NOT between iOS and it's sync master, iTunes (isn't that quite odd? iTunes syncs with the iOS, but only iOS devices can sync podcasts with each other over the air). This is growing beyond frustrating. Let me explain my experience.
Being excited as I was for this new version of the app, I went and downloaded it, and added a couple of my favorite podcasts to the app. I let the latest episodes download, then I fired up iTunes and waited, and waited, and waited. No podcasts were added to the podcasts section of iTunes. This must be some sort of mistake. So I closed iTunes, forced the podcasts app on the iPhone to refresh and tried again. Still nothing. So I manually subscribed to the podcasts in iTunes and played the latest episode for a few minutes. To my great delight (perhaps the only delightful part of this experience), even though the subscriptions don't sync over the air, the playback position does IF both devices have subscribed to the same podcast and downloaded the same episode. Yay.
So then I subscribed to a couple podcasts on iTunes. As expected from my experience trying it the other way, these podcasts did not automatically show up in the podcast app on iOS. A manual sync with a cable did make them show up. But here is the rub. THE SUBSCRIPTION SWITCH IN THE IOS APP DID NOT GET TURNED ON. You have to manually do that. So even though the podcast was synced over from the iTunes library, the podcast app does not consider that a subscription, it's just sort of parked there.
<img src="/images/uploads/IMG_9178.png" alt="">
LAME LAME LAME LAME LAME!
This does not seem that hard to get right. I don't understand why Apple is making this so painful? I don't get it. I want the features to work as advertised.
Here is what else I would be giving up to switch away from Instacast:
<ul>
<li>Push Notifications for new episodes</li>
<li>Show notes (why does Apple refuse to support this when this is such a standard now?)</li>
<li>More robust media management</li>
</ul>
I must admit that I am not thrilled with Instacast 3's slightly more dumbed down media management, but it is still way better than what Apple's app offers.
And I am excited because Instacast has teased that a Mac client is in the works with full sync. As a podcast geek and power user that will make me extremely happy. I will finally have what I have been longing for these many years.
But the real bottom line for me is that there are still not good and easy podcast solutions for the average person. Apple's app still adds complication by not working quite as advertised, and by trying to hard to make things easy. Sometimes trying to make things easy adds unexpected complication. And solutions like Instacast simple are not easy for mainstream consumers to grasp. Podcasts remain just out of reach for many average consumers in my opinion.
What is so maddening is that Apple could make this so easy and so good, but they just can't seem to manage it.
P.S. That icon is still hideous.
<hr>
Here is the orginal article I wrote about podcasts, and a quick follow up to that.
<ul>
<li><a href="/blog/2012/06/27/podcasts">Podcasts »</a></li>
<li><a href="/blog/2012/06/28/podcasts-a-quick-follow-up">Podcasts - A Quick Follow Up »</a></li>
</ul>

Apple's Podcast App Revisited


I have, since the day the iPhone came out, and I subsequently purchased one that same day, loathed all note taking options. Obviously the first iteration of iPhone OS iOS did not have third party apps or any ability to sync notes of any kind. It had a notes app and any notes one took there were forever siloed in that app. And any notes one took in any form on a Mac were also not able to be synced to one's iPhone. There have been various web based solutions, none of them good.
With third party apps came note taking apps. I have never been happy with any of them. I've tried various services and apps, like them all a little for a time, found them frustrating and moved on. For a while, I used Evernote. And to some extent I liked it. But both the Mac app and the iOS app have been through various stages of bugginess. I have had trouble with sync between the apps, sometimes, notes simply, stubbornly refused to sync at all. Additionally, I found the interface for both confusing and cluttered.
The last straw for Evernote came when the app ate a very VERY important note. I was editing the note on my phone when the app crashed. When I returned to the app, the note was gone. My computer had been left on, connected to the internet in another location so it naturally synced the lack of note and that was that. I could never get that note back. I left Evernote.
For a time I used the built in Mac and iOS notes app, which strangely, uses an IMAP mailbox on your mail server to sync. I find this to also be buggy and unreliable, but it never offered to flat out eat any of my notes and the interface is much less cluttered. But in the end, it just was not powerful enough.
I moved on to Simplenote. It's too simple, and syncing can again be a bit of a pain.
So in frustration, about a week ago, I complained on Twitter about the state of note taking and syncing.
<blockquote>
It’s 2013, can we please have a really good note taking app that syncs between computers and phones now? So far I hate all the current ones.
— TJ Draper (@tjdraperpro) <a href="https://twitter.com/tjdraperpro/status/297473239645569024">February 1, 2013</a>
</blockquote>

I received several recommendations to try Evernote again, they've been through a major overhaul and are rock solid now. I was skeptical, but thought it could not hurt since I was simply not happy with any note syncing solution/app in any capacity.
And I’ve been using Evernote since February 1 and I'm impressed. The interface has been seriously cleaned up, note syncing is rock solid and instantaneous (so far... knock on wood), and it is doing almost exactly what I want a note app and note syncing to do:
<ul>
<li>Multiple Notebooks</li>
<li>Tags</li>
<li>Nice, Lion Mail style wide screen layout on the mac, very intuitive interface on the iPhone</li>
<li>Nice, simple and clean, WYSIWYG note editing (in the past I found the WYSIWYG note editor to be very buggy, that seems to be gone)</li>
<li>A lot less cluttery feeling.</li>
</ul>
In short, if you have not used Evernote in a while due to frustrations with syncing and the interface, give it another try, it has changed much for the better and so far, this is the happiest I have ever been with note taking and syncing.

Note Taking and Syncing

<blockquote>
Following reports that <a href="http://bgr.com/2013/02/04/ios-6-1-jailbreak-release-date-315664/">an untethered jailbreak was finally set to be made available for iOS 6.1 users on Monday</a>, the Evad3rs Jailbreak Team has made their jailbreak tool evasi0n available for download. The tool jailbreaks <a href="http://bgr.com/tag/apple">Apple’s</a> (<a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=AAPL">AAPL</a>) <a href="http://bgr.com/tag/iphone-5">iPhone 5</a>, iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, <a href="http://bgr.com/tag/ipad-mini">iPad mini</a>, all iPad models and third-, fourth- and fifth-generation iPod touch models running iOS 6.0 or iOS 6.1.
</blockquote>
Wait, is jailbreaking still a thing? I really could not possibly care any less about this.

Zach Epstein writing on BGR

iOS 6.1 Untethered Jailbreak Now Available

<blockquote>
Ponder that for a second.
This statistic is from <a href="http://money.cnn.com/gallery/technology/2012/09/07/apple-iphone/index.html">September 2012</a>, but I'm posting it because I'm not sure I caught it when it was first announced.
It's also worth noting today is the iPhone's <a href="http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/01/09Apple-Reinvents-the-Phone-with-iPhone.html">6th Birthday</a> (<a href="http://www.loopinsight.com/2013/01/09/happy-sixth-anniversary-iphone/">via</a>).
I'm trying to remember what Steve Ballmer said about the iPhone when it was first announced..... Oh yeah! <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eywi0h_Y5_U">Now I remember</a>.
</blockquote>
He said:
<blockquote>
“No chance the iPhone is going to get any significant market share.” — <a href="http://youtu.be/eywi0h_Y5_U">Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, 2007</a>
</blockquote>
I wonder how he's feeling about all that now? More importantly, how is he still CEO?

DailyExhaust

No Chance for the iPhone

<blockquote>
One is focused on the new <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-FmipwLsHc">EarPod headphones</a>, while another shows off the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xtm4ySJQPOc">new Panorama feature</a> in iOS 6, and a third touts the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4IRsCjMqdI">larger screen</a> of the iPhone 5. The fourth ad shows how the iPhone 5 is the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1Rc4MDmr8o">perfect size for "your thumb"</a>, a subtle jab at the larger screens of some Android phones that can be difficult to use with one hand.
</blockquote>
Now these are good ads. I don't know what went wrong and where it went wrong with the last batch of Mac ads, but these are great.

MacRumors

iPhone 5 Television Ads

iPhone 5 Drop Test

Apple has really done something about the break-ability factor.

Another iPhone 5 Drop Text

<blockquote>
Apple understands timeless design and that’s part of what makes them such an iconic and successful company. Believe me when I tell you, the Galaxy SIII’s design will be laughable in 10 years*.
-
*I think it’s laughable right now, but that’s a post for another day.
</blockquote>
I couldn't agree more.

Alex Arena

It Looks the Same

<blockquote>
The iPhone 5 had the highest first-day sales of any iPhone model yet, <a href="http://gigaom.com/apple/apple-first-day-pre-orders-of-iphone-5-top-2m/">hitting 2 million</a>.
</blockquote>
Absolutely stunning.

Gigaom

How Impressive Are iPhone 5 Sales?

<blockquote>
If you’re down in the dumps about not being able to buy the iPhone 5 right now, we have the most amazing solution you’ve ever seen. It’s the Magical iPhone 4 Life Extension sticker. Basically it’s just a sticker that makes your iPhone 4/4S look like the two-toned back plate of an iPhone 5.
</blockquote>
I have way too much class for this, but it's still funny.
<img src="/images/blog/2012/09/19/iphone-5-sticker.jpg" alt="iphone-5-sticker">

Cult of Mac

Make Your iPhone 4 and 4S Look New

Believe it or not, there is actually a very good reason for it.
<blockquote>
So why does Verizon’s Samsung Galaxy S III, a 4G LTE phone, juggle calls and data? Samsung added an extra antenna so that it pulls data from the 4G LTE network at the same time that it’s using another antenna to do voice, said Anand Shimpi, editor in chief of AnandTech.
Then why didn’t Apple add another antenna? Its phone already has two antennas in an effort to improve reception, and it would have had to add a third antenna just for Verizon and Sprint phones to give them simultaneous data and calls, Mr. Shimpi explained. Leaving that third antenna out allows Apple to simplify the process of manufacturing the iPhone for multiple carriers. Plus, in the next two years, 4G LTE technology is supposed to evolve to support voice calls, which would render another antenna unnecessary.
</blockquote>
That's actually a bit over-simplified. The iPhone 5 is using a single, custom designed cellular chipset. This chip handles all the cellular radio needs of the phone, CDMA/EV-DO/LTE in the case of Verizon and Sprint, GSM/EDGE/UMTS/LTE in the case of the AT&#x26;T model. This chip can only be in one radio mode at a time. Currently none of the carriers support VoLTE (Voice over LTE) on their young and evolving LTE networks. In order to make a call on the Verizon/Sprint model, the chip must be in CDMA mode, which as we know does not support simultaneous voice and data. To make a call on the AT&#x26;T model, the chip must be in either GSM or UMTS mode. If you are in a 3G/UMTS area, you will have simultaneous voice and data on the UMTS network. Note that on either network, you cannot use LTE while on a call.
Also note the situation with Verizon/Sprint CDMA is not like the situation with AT&#x26;T's GSM/EDGE (2G) network where incoming calls would simply be directed to voicemail when data was being used. Incoming calls will interrupt your data session and you can choose to answer or ignore and go back to using data. I still maintain that the simultaneous voice and data is not the killer feature people think it is. I have that capability on my current AT&#x26;T iPhone of course, and I use it so rarely that I don't care about the feature.

Brian X. Chen

No Simultaneous Voice and Data for CDMA/LTE iPhone 5

<blockquote>
We <a href="http://www.bgr.com/2012/09/13/iphone-5-announcement-analysis-disappointing/">recently wrote</a> that following all the leaks and rumors leading up to the <a href="http://www.bgr.com/tag/iphone-5">iPhone 5</a> unveiling, the only thing more predictable than the new <a href="http://www.bgr.com/tag/iphone">iPhone</a> itself was people’s reactions to it. Well, the only thing even more predictable than response to the iPhone 5 was the fact that preorders would sell out quickly. <a href="http://www.bgr.com/tag/apple">Apple</a> (<a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=AAPL">AAPL</a>) made preorders of its new iPhone available on apple.com at 3:01 a.m. EDT, 12:01 a.m. PDT and in less than one hour, the company’s initial stock of new iPhones for <a href="http://www.bgr.com/tag/verizon">Verizon Wireless</a> (<a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=VZ">VZ</a>), <a href="http://www.bgr.com/tag/att">AT&#x26;T</a> (<a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=T">T</a>) and <a href="http://www.bgr.com/tag/sprint">Sprint</a> (<a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=S">S</a>) was depleted.
</blockquote>
So disappointing.

Posts tagged “iPhone” from the blog