iOS4.1 Installed = Happy iPhone 4 user!

Yup, I jumped right in and grabbed the iOS4 updated today to bring my iPhone 4 to iOS4.1. For those that don’t remember, after years of playing with pre-release OS installs on my Newtons and Palms, I now only have final versions on my daily user device (iPhone) and pre-release on my test hardware (Touch). I use my iPhone so much all day, I can’t risk pre-release hickups.

If you missed Steve’s talk, iOS4.1 brings us some features and some bug fixes. Right off, the bug fixes have made me one happy user! Many of us have been having issues with dialing people while using the phone or worse… hanging up on them (mom’s never believe you that it was an accident). The issue has been around the proximity sensor not seeing that you have the phone against your head so turn off the touch screen, thus your ear is taping buttons. This update has successfully fixed that problem for me.

The Bluetooth ‘fixes’ are yet to be seen since I wasn’t having any issues… a report on this to follow.

New features are built in HDR (High Dynamic Range) photos. I have been a huge fan and thus constant user of the app Pro HDR so I will post up a head-to-head review shortly.

Game Center for playing games against others is now built in. Since gaming isn’t a biggie for me, I’ll let someone else on the team here write that review.

Being able to pick someone from your favorites list to FaceTime with will be handy. Like we said when the iPhone 4 was first announced, who really ‘needs’ FaceTime? Well, it seems most anyone who has a friend with a iPhone 4 does as we see more and more usage all the time. Hey, where are the games that use the camera facing the player?

On the video side of enhancements in iOS4.1 – you can now view HD video from MobileMe and YouTube over Wifi. And, lastly, you can now ‘rent’ videos from iTunes. We looked into the ‘rental’ model – you can rent a video that is downloaded to your iPhone, then you have 24 hours to watch it once you start it. Not a bad option for a movie you will only want to watch once and might do so on a plane

Great news for Business owners and their iPhones

Owners of business big or small always benifit from talking with other business owners. When that isn’t possible, just reading what people in the industry has to say can be enlightening to enforce what you know or start a new idea.

A source of this is the American Express’s OPEN Forum area where very smart people write articles on what they have seen, tried, failed with and succeeded with. One of those spots you access articles by Guy Kawasaki, Ann Field and many others that you wont fine elsewhere.

If you have visited the site, there is an endless supply of content to read… which usually means that you can’t get away from your computer monitor. Lucky for us, American Express has released a free app to access the content.

The American Express OPEN Forum app opens to an ‘ALL’ articles tab and the most recent articles. If you wish to narrow the subject to location, money or technology, choose that tab across the top. The search (upper right corner) is a nice touch if your in a particular industry or have a unique interest at the moment.

Moving across the options at the bottom of the screen, you can see what is popular amongst other readers, jump the a list of the writers (Experts), and articles you have saved for later.

If you choose one of the Experts, your presented with a list of articles written by that author no matter what group that article falls in.

Selecting an article takes you to the full article, complete with links (these will open to Web pages outside of the app in a browser) and adjustable font size (two sizes to choose from). The content scrolls up/down for quick skimming if your looking just for the highlights.

As any regular reader of my posts know, I love to share with others when I find something I have enjoyed reading. The list is what you would hope it to be… Facebook, Twitter and eMail. A logical bonus method of sharing is through Linked In. It seems like a natural fit since the American Express OPEN Forum is all about bringing Business people together. Here, the mobile access to the articles doesn’t limit you from telling your Linked In business contacts about a article they may find important too.

My iPhone tells me that the F1 off season is over!

Picked up my iPhone this morning to see very happy news!

Yes, it is an alarm from the universal F1 app saying that the mid season ‘off’ time for F1 is over and there are cars going fast at Belgium. The first practice the screen mentions isn’t shown in the US so I jumped right in to see what was going on.

As I mentioned earlier, the F1 app will show an event in progress or you can download any of the events from the season from Practice 1, 2, Qualifying and the Race. The second Practice will be on TV shortly so I buzzed through these first laps to catch up on the news.

Landscape view so we can zoom in on the actual car locations…

Both views have the streaming news feature which is nice for us with limited TV coverage to stay up on the latest breaking news. F1 fans, if you go look for the app, they don’t call it the ‘F1’ app, instead it’s Timing ’10 CP – works on both the iPhone and iPad.

Netflix streaming movies to my iPhone today!

If you saw the last Apple Keynote, it was let out that we would be getting Netflix movie streaming on our iPhones ‘soon’. The app has been a hit on the iPad since the day it was released. Watching movies and TV shows… just about anytime and anywhere, over WiFi of course. Talking with others, it seems that documentaries have gotten a huge increase of viewers when you can choose what you want to watch, when you want to watch via your mobile device (iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch).

Today, time at work as we know it just ended! Well, maybe the ride to the office and at break time.

If you have a regular Netflix account, shows come to you as simple as installing the app and logging in. It is a ‘free’ universal app so grab and go. Netflix opens to show your regular home page list of show groups and links to movies you are in progress with. Genres, Search and Instant Que is available through the buttons at the bottom.

Choose a group to see a list of names and show thumbnails, swipe to scroll and load more… and more and more…

Tapping a show results in the description. You can add to your list of shows to watch later or ‘play’ to nave Netflix start the show now. Notice that if the ‘show’ is a series, you can choose which episode you want to watch instead of having to watch one stream of shows end-to-end.

Shows are streamed in Landscape view – switch between letterbox and full screen anytime while playing. As well, the usual progress bar and volume/play controls are available.

Start a Netflix movie on your iPhone while on the go, watch later on the iPad where you left off. Or on your notebook/desktop… progress in sync across the many different devices.

Buzzing around the world with your iPhone and 20,000 images

The free Fotopedia Heritage app gives you direct access to their 890 sites containing over 20,000 images. There is no need to search around for a location and then through a ton of average pictures to find one that is of someplace fun and interesting. Then, try to find out more info on that location.

Heritage gives you a quick way to find increadable images from all around the world. You can drill in for more information and share that information out to your friends. You can also quickly find additional images from that location. As if that isn’t enough, you can choose the world globe to see a pinned map taking you right to the place in the world for that particular image.

Selecting the ‘i’ will give you more data on the area the picture is from. Swipe up and down for information from a variety of sources.

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