Updates to using your iPhone in an Apple Store

There is all kinds of press around Apple adding iPads next to their products in stores so people can better self help. I can see those iPads taking up valuable ‘play with the hardware space’ since that is mostly what people do in the Apple Stores. But, it might help the issue with finding someone to take your money when you want to buy something. Trying to buy things has been a point of pain for me over the last couple years in about any Apple Store.

Will this mean less employees? There is aways available Genius people and the name takers/callers around that area. Perhaps, Apple is looking to lower their in-store headcounts.

Today there is rumored an announcement from Square and Apple… maybe those iPad sales devices will get Squares that will let us set up our computer, swipe our card and go pick up the device at the back counter… hopefully it wont be pushing us to accept the new computer via home delivery. Since Apple will already know what you want to order, they could show ‘inventory’ at the last second and offer to have it in your hands, shipped from the factory, in just days. Again, lowering the Apple in-store overhead.

Oh yea, I was going to talk about the updates to the iPhone Apple Store app.

The app can now be used to get someone’s attention to help you while your in a store. Along with checking the times for training events or asking for personal training.

When you launch the Apple Store app inside of a store, you can tell the Genius that you are there. I’ll get a screen shot of that the next time in a store… it’s pretty automated.

If your in a hurry, you can use the free app to request a product be ready for your pickup. This has some time limitations since they need to rotate their inventory and don’t want to have the only white iPhone left sitting for weeks waiting on your visit.

You can now do more than just view the default product set up too. The Apple Store app lets you customize your Apple product like you can do via their site. This is handy when talking to a in-store tech about your options, sometimes they stick with certain configurations they are familiar with.

iPhone Instagram updated with Grid View, Profiles and Push settings

The folks from Instagram rolled out an update today… a few features I am already finding useful.

Two items that jump to the top of the list for me is the new ‘grid’ view when you go to someone’s area of photos. You can see at the top of the screen shot below that you can choose between the classic list and the new grid view of the pictures.

As well, a person can have a 150 character ‘bio’ that can show on this same ‘Profile’ page. Most folks I follow don’t have bios to show yet but this will be an area people will most likely be putting their site addresses in. Hope it is used for ‘more info’ like the bio line in Twitter.

While in the Instagram Profile area, there is a new option to use the image from Facebook or Twitter.

‘Bernard’ below isn’t me, just someone I enjoy following with his pics from all over the place. And, his dog shares a name with my pup!

 

Instagram’s Push notification has been expanded: “You can now choose to receive like and comment notifications from everyone or only from the people you follow. Note that Push Notifications for Instagram must be turned ON in the Settings app for these additional settings to work”

From Instagram’s site:

More clear when geotagging is turned on: In addition to the green map marker, “Geotagged” will appear in the Where? field if location is turned on. This means that the lat/long of your current location will be tagged with the photo. Just tap the green map marker to turn off geotagging.

Your HalfTone iPhone images now with cartoon talk

Some folks will be more excited about this than others. Most likely, those that grew up with the campy Batman TV series. When Batman or Robin hit someone, you never saw the contact. Instead, there was a text splash that said ‘Pow’ or ‘Bam’ and the like.

And, comics in the newspapers have always had the ‘Arrrggh!’ when folks are in trouble.

The iPhone photo app HalfTone has added these talking bits to their feature list. Now, when you take an image and convert it to a half tone image (making it look like it would if printed in a newspaper), you can also add any of a list of 21 stamps.

These HalfTone stamps can be freely placed on the image or inside of a speaking bubble or star-burst.

The new ‘action text’ isn’t the only new feature included in this update. From the HalfTone developers:

+ Ability to customize stamp colors
+ Two new licensed fonts, Alter Ego, and Billy the Flying Robot (user request)
+ New fonts include European characters (big user request)
+ Added TwitPic option for image upload (user request)
+ Completely new halftone generation engine
+ Improved “pucker” (pointy) balloon shape
+ New dot gain setting (user request for halftone geeks)
+ Added ability to choose a smaller dot size (user request)
+ Added instruction screens for first-time feature use
+ Ability to reset to original settings

Multi Language, Free Word of the Day for the iPhone

Several dictionary apps for the iPhone will give you a Word of the Day. Other apps are offering just Word of the Day around specific subjects, language or database. Vocabology is a free iPhone app that gives you more options in one app for what words you will be getting. The list includes: Spanish, Portuguese, German, Italian, French, Dictionary.com, Wiktionary and Merriam Webster.

Launching Vocabology, your given the list of all of the Words for the day. Just scroll up/down to find that you want. Setting the order the list shows on launch is allowed through the  button in the upper right corner.

Choose any word to bring up the description of the word. If there is an audio clip of the word being said, it will appear on this screen, just tap to listen. You do not need to go back to Vocabology’s list of words to see the next word, just swipe the page up/down.

As you can see above, Vocabology is supported through ads. I didn’t see a way to upgrade to get rid of them so for now the app is free with annoying ads on every word description page.

There is a ‘History’ option to go back to your previous viewed words. As well, you have the option of Vocabology giving you a timed quiz to see how well your doing at remember the words you have been viewing daily.

 

When you drop your iPhone4, more bounces is a good thing

If you ever have a concern about dropping your iPhone 4… say, down three flights of stairs, I have the case for you! It took me eight tries, but I finally managed to ‘drop’ my iPhone in a way to get it to go down a set or stairs, bounce off the corner and down the next set. I wasn’t worried about the iPhone, just didn’t want to dent the walls.

The case is the new ‘Survivor’ from Griffin. If you remember the video I posted a while back, they really put it through the tests to show that a drop from your hand shouldn’t concern you anymore. The case carries a military grade rating against getting bumped around and for dust.

The Griffin Survivor case includes a snap-on clip. The clip size is right to go over a belt. Since the case facing side clip snaps around the outer edge of the upper/lower edge of the case, you can remove the case from the clip without removing the clip from your belt.

Inside of the soft rubber outer is a hard plastic inner case. The inner case holds the iPhone4 firmly and ‘floats’ inside of the outer case. The soft rubber of the Griffin Survivor is soft and actually a bit slick feeling in my hands. The look of it appears it would be more porous feeling. Due to the perfectly placed cut outs along the edges of the case it is easy to hold without fear of dropping your iPhone. That said, it might be the fact that the case offers so much protection for the iPhone4 is the real secure feeling you get holding it.

The inner hard plastic part of the Survivor case splits open to sit the iPhone4 inside, then snap back together. For buttons/switches there are raised tunnels to protect those items. These raised area will get covered later with rubber flaps in the outer rubber case.

The outer rubber doesn’t ‘open’, you tip the hard plastic shrouded iPhone4 in and roll the rubber over the edges. In the picture above, you can see the little hard plastic tabs that lock into the outer rubber so it doesn’t move around.

Included in the Survivor case is a see through plastic cover for the screen that is locked into the hard plastic ‘inner’ case. This covers the screen, front camera and ear speaker.

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