AirCurve Acoustic Amplifier Now Available for iPhone 4

There once was this little see through plastic thingy that I put my iPhone 3 into which through the science of expanding area made the volume out of the iPhone much louder. It was handy in the office for iPhone conference calls and when I didn’t want to hook up my headphones/external speaker. Drop in and go… but ‘no go’ for the iPhone 4 due to case shape and speaker location.

Happy news today when Griffin mentioned they had something I needed to spend my hard earned dollars on! An AirCurve that is specifically designed for the iPhone 4. It is interesting how with the iPhone 3, you sat the device in the acoustic amplifier like you would a dock. Now, the new model, you lay your iPhone 4 down into the device which allows you to view your iPhone screen in portrait or landscape views.

As a reminder, the AirCurve does not use any power so the ‘amplified’ sound is just that… louder. There is no trick electronic components that are altering the sound you hear to be different. The iPhone 3 version did sound a bit ‘fuller’. Now, with the iPhone 4, I can see FaceTime being used more around the office. If Griffin sells enough, think someone might create software that tunes the output (bass/treble) with the AirCurve in mind?

AirCurve Play Acoustic Amplifier for iPhone 4 at GriffinTechnology.com.

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Tripod mounting the iPhone 4

There is a new project being talked about on the Internet: “Glif “- iPhone 4 Tripod Mount & Stand. It is a injection molded plastic iPhone 4 holder that can be screwed onto a tripod. The mount holds the iPhone 4 in place without clamping, rather through a snug fit along two sides.

An side ‘feature’ of this mount is the little extra lip the team thought of which enables it to be used to hold your iPhone 4 when no tripod is available. Not for photographing, more for viewing of documents and movies.

You can hit their site to read up on their adventure to see an idea become a reality. An interesting angle on this is that they asked for development money at $20 per unit which they will ship when manufacturing is done… 4800 people stepped up so far.

This isn’t the only option available, Gary Fong produces a tripod mount as well that is more traditional. The mount snaps around the iPhone 4 at the top and bottom.

It is available through the Gary Fong’s photography accessory site. For those folks that don’t want to haul a true tripod around with them, Gary Fong also offers ‘the Cage‘ which is a frame to mount the iPhone tripod adapter to. The legs are a frame that you can fold close to protect the iPhone 4 or open and use as legs. Adjusting the legs out/in will adjust the hight a small amount of the iPhone.

Why do you ‘need’ your iPhone 4 mounted on a tripod? For me personally, it’s handy for those images that need to take a bit longer like night shots that always get a bit shaky. Longer movies that are more than just ‘fun with the family’ are better when you can get the iPhone held in a single spot for the whole shot. And, for the StopMotion movies we have fun with from time to time. I have mentioned StopMotion Recorder before, it can be fun for the whole family.

Mapping work processes on the iPhone

I was sitting in a rather painful meeting last week regarding work processes for another group. The presenter was trying to fit it all into a spreadsheet. It had items with sub items that where indented but didn’t look right on another person’s computer. The meeting then turned to just doing a big text document. Because some paths wrapped back to another path, the document was starting to have many sections repeated over and over again.

A thought hit me to try iThoughts on my iPhone… it worked! Most folks think of iThought as a mindmapping only solution but really it works great for anything that has steps in a path and especially well when paths need more info than just a word or two.

Works in portrait and landscape views:

Any of the boxes can contain additional information either by using the button in the lower right corner or tapping on the box.

Tapping a box on the iThoughts work area brings up more than just editing of the box text. This is where you can quickly change the color, adjust the shape of the box, add an icon and set start/due dates.

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Fold out keyboard case for iPhone 4 and 3GS

ThinkGeek feels that your iPhone needs a keyboard enough that they are putting their money into it.

Soon available through ThinkGeek will be a ‘spin’ out keyboard for the iPhone that acts as a back case. The spin will remind you of the old ‘Danger’ cell phones. In this case, the keyboard is connected to the iPhone via Bluetooth.

Pre-orders aren’t being taken, but you can sign up for an email when ThinkGeek starts shipping. I’m really on the fence on this one. I do a lot of text entry into my iPhone and think this ThinkGeek option will be really cool (shown as $49.99 US) but when the case is closed it completely covers the camera. I also take a lot of pictures so that is a negative… I’ll wait to pass judgement till I actually have one in my hand and will let you know.

Getting an overview of your day through your iPhone

The iPhone calendar can keep you on track throughout your day, but very few folks actually use it. Instead, keeping daily calendars on stickies, the work computer, the paper planner or the front of the fridge. I’m the first to agree there can be challenges in syncing between the many work day planner options but for the rest of us that use Mac or iCal options it is always at our finger tips, why not use it?!

A tip I brought forward from my Palm days was to create ‘different’ calendars for different types of items to be on my calendar. Color coding each differently so a quick glance tells me if I’m running to a meeting room or just dialing in.

Don’t for a minute believe the iPhone calendar is all it could be. It is great at keeping calendar items, viewing a week or day (yes, a limited month view too), setting a variety of alarms and repeating occurances. The ability to vary the font and viewing scale is lacking. And, extended information on meetings in a single view is not supported.

When you have a full day, this is what a day view looks like using your iPhone’s ‘list view’:

Another view that is much more popular for seeing the day as one chunk is the ‘Day’ view:

It is nice to have the color coding and see how the meetings stretch across the time of your day.

If the day view is what you spend most of your time in, you may wish to concider the app “Today’s Calendar“. It presents more information about the meetings you have in your built in Calendar’s Day view. No need to have two calendar entries. Today’s Calendar is a separate iPhone Launcher icon though (added feature is the reason).

All of the built in calendar options are available when setting up a new or editing a current calendar item. The time of the appointments are tied directly to the calendar item to help know exact start/end times. As well, there is an icon to let you know which ones have an alarm assigned to them.

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