Every file in every meeting when the iPhone is near

Buzzing from meeting to meeting, most of my notes are in my office. Notes, presentations, past and future… they are either in print or on the desktop. This has long been a problem for anyone who doesn’t do all their meetings from a single location or have everything on their notebook.

I do have a notebook… but I also have an iPad and I have a both work and personal computers that I use intermixed. About a year ago, I pulled the trigger on all handwritten notes are getting scanned to PDF. Now with the iPad, I used Note Taker to write those same notes, then export right out of the app to PDFs.

Then, there are Word docs, Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint decks. When you think about documents sent to you from others, how many do you actually need to edit. They are generally for reference only.

iOS4 has brought about the ability to move documents around the iPhone. If you have a document in an app, most can be viewed by multiple document readers/editors. The effort has always been how to get those files to your iPhone for later reference. At first, most solutions had the files staying on your desktop and then you accessed them through software on both ends. Some worked better if you were on the same network, others worked better over the internet.

Finally, Cloud storage appeared. You have several ‘cloud’ options… most cost money (Google, Amazon, Microsoft), but two well known are free, Dropbox and Box.net. I have gone the direction of Dropbox due to it’s ease of getting files into my Dropbox folders and the quantity of apps avail that work directly with the service.

Using the Dropbox app, you can access any of the folders of documents you have set up on the system.

Within folders, you can see the files. It is nice to have the icons for quicker referencing. Like I mentioned before, most files are for looking at and not editing so in almost all situations I save my PowerPoints as PDFs. This small step makes viewing easier, more apps can view and other than animations you have a better chance of keeping the original layout.

Taping any file will open it to be viewed right in the Dropbox app. Load time is very fast even on the 3G network… wifi of course is even faster. Someone mention notes from the last meeting they sent out, seconds later you zipping through them while everyone else is commenting that they should have printed those and brought them to the meeting.

The icon on the lower left corner of the screen brings up a list of options to handle the document. As you can see, I have Documents to Go so I can edit documents that might need to be updated, iBooks for reading PDFs that are more of book layout, AirSharing for the documents I want to push back to my notebook via WiFi if I don’t want to transfer via Dropbox, GoodReader for more advanced PDF reading, FTPOnTheGo for site page updates (some flat file/spreadsheets) and iUnArchive for files that are zip compressed.

The icon on the lower right corner is for sharing out to those folks that asked if you would be so kind as to share what they didn’t bring. It is also handy when at a client’s location. Never worry about not bringing the files along, you can hand out a link to a file via email or paste into a document. I did mention Dropbox Cloud and iPhone app are free, right?

Just Another Blog’s Thoughts on the iOS 4.01 Update

Everywhere you look today, if there was a mention of the iPhone 4, they mentioned the 4.01 update. The update from Apple is a full OS update, as are they usually are. Installing this on your iPhone 4 will not get you a big speed bump you may have noticed on earlier OS updates. This has nothing to do with the update… or other  updates. Those speed bumps are usually brought about due to the device being wiped, the OS being installed and then all your apps being installed again. Just like your desktop, things are better organized and you feel like you got more than you actually did. In the case of the iPhone 4, there hasn’t been enough time for things to get scrambled around much.

As far as what this update will do for you, it corrects the math Apple used to calculate how many bars are shown to represent signal strength. I’m sure this will make AT&T happy that you don’t think you have 5 bars but bad reception or 2 bars when they are actually covering you with 5.

This update has nothing to do with the antenna issue you have also been seeing everywhere. The issue of your skin shorting the antennas around the outer edge of the iPhone at the gap on the left side. I have seen the bars drop off on a coworker’s iPhone 4 when they specifically put their finger there. I have not had a single issue when holding the phone in my left hand and using it for a call. Is that because I’m ‘not’ or ‘too’ conductive?

A cheat for Apple would have been to released a patch to watch for the issue to happen then resort to a single antenna. Not sure that is possible with their set up, just me thinking outside of the box. Happy they didn’t go there. Placing any variety of sticky bit over that gap will make the problem actually go away for you. Or, buy a case. Or, just not put your finger there. Big problem? Recall? Nah! None of the folks I deal with have reported any of their fellow iPhone 4 owners have returned their devices. There are plenty of options for power Smartphones these days but there doesn’t seem to be much of a switch away campaign.

Heard about developers getting iOS 4.1? Yes, it’s true. Not seeing any antenna fiddling going on there either. So far, it appears to help with Bluetooth issues and give us the Game Center back we saw in early 4 betas.

Enough on the negatives… I’m sure enjoying my folders and quick switching. And now that my wife has a iPhone 4, we actually do use FaceTime. Camera, compass, movies, screen… yea, we like it!

Task Aware updated in time for Weekend ToDo List

Task Aware was updated Saturday night with a few ‘must haves’ for my weekend chores. Interesting isn’t it how some updates hit home with items you need and others you feel you can just pass on.

Reminder, Task Aware is the ToDo app that alerts you when you are near the location you said was important for that task. You can do all the usual ToDo list features of priorities, dates and flags… adding the feature of dropping a pin on where the task should take place. That would be things like Light Bulbs at HomeDepot or Coffee grounds at Starbucks.

The update:

-Draggable pins support (you can now fine tune your location pins)
-New notification radius option: Travelling by foot? — Smaller notification radius for locations travelled while walking
-New icons in the Map view (pictures are worth a thousand words)
-Tasks which are overdue and are grouped by due date now fall under tasks for ‘Today’

Being able to fine tune the pins and the difference in reminders for walking versus driving are big for me. I was walking around a mall several weeks ago and was reminded of the task at a store in the mall. Nice, but I was a long ways away still… close for a car driving but a lot of steps when walking. I will test today in that same mall.

Just the news you want on your iPhone – online/offline

Pulse is a New gatherer, reader app that has grown very popular on the iPad side of the Apple touch screen product line. Now, there is a Pulse News ‘Mini’ for the iPhone and Touch users.

It is all in the name… Pulse ‘Mini’ is just a small screen version of the full size Pulse on the iPad. Different names mean you pay per version if you have a iPhone and a iPad rather than it being a Universal app.

Pulse does a nice job of pulling down news that your interested in to be read online or offline later. What sets it aside is it’s ability to marry the news feed headlines with a small image so you can sweep through the news to find what your interested in. Most other readers either give you a long list of headlines or images and no text so it’s a hunt and peck to find what you want to read without opening all the posts that could be passed over.

All the controls are where you would expect them to be and very much self explanatory. No mystery buttons. The only one they didn’t highlight here is the refresh button in the upper right but you know that since the button is as it should be.

Pulse comes set up with a handful of New Feeds already running. Via the Settings area you can re-order the list or remove items that don’t match your interests.

Via the buttons along the bottom of the screen, you can choose news feeds from a long list of ones already loaded, search for new ones or pull in items you have in your Google Reader.

When you have your chosen list of important news feeds, returning to the main screen gives you a view of news in images and headlines. Sweep up/down to work through the many feeds you may have and left/right to move through the news of each feed (just the news feed your sweeping with your finger moves rather than all of the feeds so you can keep you place in one while moving through another).

Tap on a headline or image to bring up the article. Links are still active and open when tapped.

To wrap up with Pulse Mini – a big feature for me is the ability to share with others great articles I find. This can be done via email, Facebook and Twitter. And, if your concerned about the article going away from Pulse on the next update  or data refresh, just send it to your Instapaper account.

iOS4 Brings More Power To Your ToDo Lists On The iPhone

If you have visited this site before, you know I do a lot of lists. They are both hierarchical and ToDo style lists. Depending on the list of items, they may have dates/alarms, be tied to other activities, synced across multiple devices and shared with others.

iOS4 has brought many new capabilities, and TaskAware is going to use them for your ToDo list management.

Since your iPhone can run apps in the background and know where it is based on cell towers (and GPS if you so choose and don’t mind the impact to battery life). The TaskAware app allows you to tie a ToDo item to a location. Then, as you get near (you set the distance) the location you will be reminded of the ToDo item.

Need to remember to pick up ground coffee on the way home? Drop off a package at the post office? Be reminded of event particulars as you enter the parking area? That is just a few of the items I have actually already used TaskAware for. Most important for me so far is to remember things that I need to do when going to/from home and the office. I have not hit the doorstep over more than a week where I have had to debat if I can do without or I should head back out.

Your milage may vary in how handy you find having a ToDo reminder tied to a location as you approach it. Of course, this doesn’t help me with my long lists of tasks at the office but it has had a positive impact to anytime I need to pickup/drop-off/move while commuting. I do not travel on a commuter train, but it would interesting to see how well it would do to remind a person that they need to transfer to a different train than they would normally use when going someplace other than the norm.

Create your ToDo list, with all the expected level of importance and dates assignments.

Choose a location for any ToDo items you need to be aware of when approaching.

Then get an alert for the task per the distance you set, handy if you have to take an off-ramp way before a location.