More Ways to Share Documents Through the iPhone

I mentioned how much I hate apps that call themselves ‘scanner’ apps for the iPhone. That said, I keep finding myself using the app JotNot Scanner. Which, as you know, isn’t a scanner it’s a image modifier. What it does really well is automatically cleaning up images of text and documents.

New today is the addition of being able to share the document images out via DropBox.

As a reminder – you snap an image of a article or document. The app has the option to not take the picture till you stop moving. You choose to take another picture or use the one you just took.

Adjustments can be made via the settings area to fine tune how different types of document images are cleaned up.

JotNot will attempt to align it’s clean up feature with the corners of the content. It actually does a pretty good job at getting it right. You can drag any corner around to align if the app is off a bit.

The image in the edit mode can be twisted and resized as needed. Sharing the document image is quick to do from the picker –

Sending the image via email can be done in a variety of formats. While the resulting document being shared isn’t at the level of a scanned printed contract, it is nice enough to read and share with others that will be interested in the information. All via your iPhone and in less than a minute.

Better Language Lessons on the iPhone

My wife and I are both half Italian. We love to visit Italy whenever the jobs allow, which seems to happen years between each trip. While my wife is able to fluently speak 5 languages, I sometime struggle to find just the right word in English so taking on another language has been a long desire and longer in success.

While there are many apps for the iPhone that give me the power to translate words or give me key phrases to memorize, they all create a extra step when trying to speak any language but my home English. They need you to think in English, then translate and them speak.

uTalk has a long list of language learning apps that go about the task from a different angle. They offer a variety of level of difficulty in word and phrase ‘games’. You choose they type of word groups you want to work on, the level and then listen and match the spoken words to images.

This seems to have a much higher rate of success for me. I reason in my mind what the words may mean and attempt to match, the app responds with a positive or negative response.

uTalk offers a very large list of language lessons for the iPhone for around the $7.99 each price. If you have a iPad, they are offering a Universal version for many of their languages (Italian here) for $9.99 each which could be installed on both your iPad and iPhone – one purchase rather than two individual purchases.

Getting Creative With Help From Your iPhone

When needing to be creative, for design work or writing, it helps to free the mind from the four walls of the office. It isn’t always possible to take a walk around a area that has influences of what you need. We have always subscribed to a variety of designer magazines which can be fun. Just seeing how others have solved a problem can be energizing.

Using the built in feature to save to library, I like to grab images from Web sites I visit on the iPhone. Tap and hold gives the option to save the image. You can look at it later in your normal Photos area. Since I can’t sort images in the Camera Roll, I set up more folders of groups of images via iPhoto/iTunes. This process requires a sync, sorting on the computer and then syncing again. I end up with folders of different themes that I can shuffle through later to jump start the idea engine from anywhere. Handy when sitting in a coffee spot…

I have been wishing someone would write an app to make this process better. A few days ago I found Photo+Folders, just released and just right.

I go through the normal process of collecting photos, either from the iPhone camera or sites visited. Then, in Photo+Folders, I set up the different areas (labeled folders, you name and can rename when you wish) for the type of images.

Open one of the folders, choose to ‘import’ (second folder icon on the bottom of the page) takes you to your Photo’s Camera Roll. Choose a image to move a copy of it over to the Photo+Folders folder. You can stay on that import page till you close it so you can click on each image you want to move without leaving the photos area.

Once you have the folder built of images, you can remove those photos from the built in Photos area. Now you are able to look at an overview of the images in the folder, choose one and sweep through the images. Never needing to touch iPhoto/iTunes or your desktop computer.

This would be a great app for putting together family member or event photo albums too. From within the Photo+Folders app, you can select one or all to share with others, move to another folder or delete. You can also take an image with the iPhone camera directly from the app to cut the step of importing from the Photos Camera Roll.

Better Google Image Search for the iPhone

Google is giving iPhone users a bit of love by fine tuning their Image Search… this release is only for the iPhone and Android. Nothing to buy here… just launch your built in browser and search for an image.

Interesting is that the new Image Search look appears when you use the regular Google in your Web browser on the iPhone, not the iPad and not the m.google.com address. The service sees your device type and changes the view to all images in equal sized squares and no text. This makes it much faster to zoom through many images to find the one you want.

You can still use the ‘Classic’ view of the Google Images Search (via the link at the bottom of the new view), but this requires you to zoom in on the resulting page to see the images and make the text go from little blurry lines to real words.

More particulars available on Google’s Mobile Blog.

Car Charger for the iPhone – Where Smaller is Better

Can you walk into a Apple store without buying something? I have mixed luck, generally walking out with nothing when with friends. Get me in there by myself and give me time to play a bit… swish goes my card. Hardware I go in with the plan to buy, software I get online, but gadget accessories are so much easier to compare in the store than online.

On my last trip, I noticed a section of car chargers for the iPhone (iPad too?). This has become more important to me as I am finding my usage of bluetooth has increased quite a bit. Between the office Bluetooth speaker and the car hands free, the battery is pretty low by my drive home. Going through the options Apple had on the wall display, many of the chargers with multiple plugs looked nice. Then, I saw a Kensington micro model that offered a USB plug almost flush with the plug top. I had not seen these before, everything always towers up out to hit your arm on. Or, in the case of my car, the plug is way under the dash lower edge so most of the long chargers wont fit in.

I buzzed home to get a picture before trying it out… just in case I loved or hated it I would have a clean image to mention it.

I can say, it slipped in and has been doing a nice job of keeping my iPhone charged up. The power is charging my iPhone even when being used as a handsfree… I would have been happy with just being able to run off of the car power so charging is a plus.

The thin/flat top sits down right on top of the car’s power plug. Mine is out of the way so I have not had to pull it out between usage, but if you had to you may break a fingernail trying to get it out since it does sit so low and snug. As seen in the picture, a cable is included. You may also notice I paid $24.95, which I thought was a good price till I went to Kensington’s site and found they charge $19.95 there. Not worth my time to take it back, plus I don’t want to be without it.
Here’s a link directly to Kensington’s Mini Charger if you want to see what the manufacture has to say.