QuickOffice for the iPhone, you will be happier with the next version

QuickOffice for the iPhone is the new hot Document viewer/editor just released on the iTunes AppStore. It does everything, except a few things you may not want to live without. And, it doesn’t follow the iPhone built in text features that will bite you every time you type.

The QuickOffice folks provided their Quicksheet spreadsheet app a while ago. I use it daily because it is so fast to create spreadsheets with and it’s full suite of features. Most spreadsheets I create are for sorting a bit of information with equations from time to time. I have also produced a full 13 month business plan when stuck in an airport and the Macbook had a dead battery.

When QuickOffice (a single app that has Quicksheet and Quickword in one) showed up, I grabbed a copy hoping to have the same success with text document creations and editing. I should not have been surprised by it’s shortcomings as they are similar to the issues I had with the application on my Palm device. The QuickOffice folks do not believe that all the features built into the OS should be followed. Two that will catch you out every time you type a text note: If you tap the shift key on the keyboard, it locks on, not unlocking after the single character capitalization. Also, double space at the end of a sentence does not create a period and auto capitalize the first letter. Not as much of an issue but ‘different’ is the lack of the magnifying glass when you tap on text to insert the curser – QuickOffice enlarges the whole page causing much of it to disappear off the screen.

That said, the feature list of QuickOffice is amazing! Undo/Redo, copy/paste, Auto-Save/Auto-Restore, bullets, fonts (Bold, Italic, Color, Highlight and format). You can create Word Docs, folders, and manage your files amongst the folders. If you want to just view files without editing, you can do with all the usual file types (except iWork 2009 – what did Apple do to those files that everyone is having issues supporting?).

Moving files on/off of your iPhone can be done via WiFi to a computer on the same network. This is done pretty easily via a Web browser, no additional desktop app is needed. If you have a MobileMe account, you can move files to/from that online storage too. Promised to be in the next version (free upgrade) is the ability to email your work – I really need this feature, the competition has it!

QuickOffice got my 19 dollars before I found out about the limitations. Mad? No! Time will tell how much trouble it is to switch between the iPhone text features vs the QuickOffice opinion how things should work. Meanwhile, I can open, edit, and save Word docs for a meeting in the time it takes the elevator to buzz through 20 floors every morning.

Skype for the iPhone and Apple Touch

At the end of March, Skype – eBay’s internet voice chat software – announced the release of their long-awaited iPhone app. The free app lets iPhone owners use Skype’s instant messaging and voice chat features at no cost – the killer app we have all been waiting for. Placing calls to regular phone numbers worldwide and even receiving incoming calls on a traditional phone number is available in monthly subscriptions or pay-as-you-go plans. The best part of all? All of the features work on the 2nd generation iPod Touch as well, as long as you have one of the new earphones that includes an inline microphone – available for $29 for the standard earbuds or $79 for the in-ear headphones. Both iPhone and iPod Touch versions require access to a WiFi network in order to use any of the voice features. I put the new app through its paces using an iPod Touch with the Apple In-Ear Headphones.

Account setup
If you have never used Skype before, you can set up a new account right in the app – no need to install the desktop client at all, though if you are an existing Skype user all your contacts list will automatically be imported to the mobile app when you log in. A word of caution: there is no way to change your Skype login name nor delete your account once you create one, so make sure you pick an account name you are happy with for all your personal and business contacts. You can manage your entire profile (the information that appears in public searches) from the mobile app, including selecting a picture from the iPod. If you want to use the premium for-pay features, you can buy Skype Credit directly from the app – it launches an iPhone version of Skype’s web shop in Safari.

Interface
The interface should be familiar to iPod Touch users. The app starts up with the standard Skype I-love-rainbows-and-clouds splash screen, then lets you choose between contacts, text chats, voice calls, history and your profile info. The contact list does not support groups like the desktop app does, but the interface is the standard combination of search with alphabet-based navigation along the right side of the screen. In addition to getting your existing contacts when you log in, you can add new contacts by searching for them on the Skype network, or simply importing them from your iPod address book. The chat screen lets you see all your open text chats, or just the chats that have had activity since you last checked. A few parts of the interface are a bit clunky and less refined than you would expect for an iPhone app. Managing the chats is difficult – instead of just swiping your finger across the name of a conversation to close the chat, you have to tap through to a few screens to close it. Likewise, setting your status and mood message – things you will want to do frequently – are buried in with all the other profile and account management settings – things you rarely access. There is an empty space in the upper left hand side of nearly every other screen. A Facebook-style status button to fill that space would make a lot more sense. The buttons on the inline remote on the headphones do control the volume, but the center button ends the call, opens your Music Library, and begins playing a song instead of doing something useful like muting the call. There is a nice call history showing all calls or just missed calls. From there you can add or block contacts, initiate chats, redial a voice call or see the contact’s profile.

How well does it work?
Text chat works like one would expect it to, but there are many other options for text instant messaging. Voice chat on an iPod Touch is the killer app many have been waiting for. I tried both Skype-to-Skype calls as well as calls from the iPod Touch to a regular phone number. For phone calls, you can dial using the dial pad, or pull up contacts from your Address Book. The quality is consistent between the two. Callers I talked to on the other end reported that my voice sounded just like it did from any other cell phone – which is to say not great quality, but certainly intelligible. Using Apple’s In-Ear headphones for voice calls was very unnatural since I couldn’t hear the sound of my own voice except for the inside-my-head feeling. I found that using only one earpiece solved this problem, but if you are switching back and forth between music and Skype calls popping the left earbud in and out could be annoying. Since you can only receive incoming calls when you are running the app, this won’t let iPhone users get away with replacing their phone service with an iPod Touch, but it certainly is handy to be able to make outgoing calls and international calls at Skype’s prices.

Two Drivers Work in Apple In-Ear Headphones

If you are like me, the one-size-fits-all earphones that come bundled with new iPods are more like don’t-fit-at-all. The standard earphones rest in the bottom of your ear next to your ear canal. They are comfortable and do sound pretty good, provided you can stay stationary. You can forget about shaking your head like the silhouetted dancers in the iPod commercials, since the earphones tend to fall out at even the slightest angle. So I decided to try out the new Apple In-Ear Headphones to see how they compare.

The major difference with the new headphones is that they actually sit inside your ear canal and seal it off from the outside world. Inserting and removing the headphones feels natural after only a few uses, and once you find the right size ear tips – three sizes are included – they stay planted firmly in place. I was worried about discomfort, but they turned out to be quite comfortable for even long periods of time. Apple even includes a spare set of mesh caps and instructions on how to clean them. I tested the sound quality against the standard earphones using a large range of music, from Dark Side of the Moon to Tuvan throat singing. The separate woofers and tweeters in the in-ear headphones provide impressive bass response, with a much more neutral and full sound, making the standard earphones sound slightly harsh by comparison. The in-ear headphones also come with an inline remote to control the iPod, which is intuitive to use by touch. I was pleased to find that the remote also works when plugged into my MacBook. My one complaint: because they seal your ear canal so well, vibrations from the cables hanging down tend to travel up to your ear with a loud booming; this proved to be quite annoying while running, but at least they they stayed in place. The sound quality and fit of the In-Ear Headphones is on par with other, more expensive ear canal models, making it worth the upgrade from the standard earphones.

In the case of the current iPhone, users should be aware that the volume up/down rocker does not adjust the sound. Hopefully this is something that is cleaned up with OS 3 that is about to come out. The click to pause, replay or skip a song work as you would expect. Great!


Getting paper notes into your iPhone

My iPhone and Macbook go to every meeting with me. And as much as one tries to be all electronic, there are times in a hall conversation where you are faced with a pen and paper to get the facts recorded. At the end of the day you have a few paper notes that are not in with your digital, searchable, notes. And, they are trapped, you are unable to share with others without a copy machine.

I have an inexpensive HP printer/scanner/fax machine that has a simple feeder. When I get home in the evening, I put the day’s documents in the machine’s feeder and scan them into my notebook as PDFs. That has been great for organizing, sharing and reviewing later. With my iPhone always handy, why not have those notes in there too.

While I always print, OCR doesn’t get it right very often so I will be looking at having images of the text documents. This does present a problem with searching, so I will need access to the name of the file as well meta information.

After playing with many different application options, I decided to keep it simple. The apps it came down to was Annotator and OneDisk. Scanned PDFs are named with the date they were written and meeting title. Since I’m on a Mac, I use Preview to join all of the weeks notes into one larger PDF also for those times I need to scan the full conversation as they relate. Lastly, since they are hand written and not typed text scans, I have found 200 DPI Gray to view the best on the iPhone.

For Annotator, I point the scanner’s output to a folder on the desktop of my notebook. To use Annotator you need to install the iPhone/Touch application and a desktop app..

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Send a message of many words by using images

Regular follows know that I am a fan of taking pictures with my iPhone for both work and pleasure. Work images can be a snap shot of a whiteboard full of information to use later, a screen shot of information on the iPhone, or pictures of an event that shows work in progress or the atmosphere. Please images are exactly what you expect, pictures of my lovely wife or of our energetic Bichon, Luna.

Several posts ago, I covered a couple applications I have been using to send images with frames and/or text via email. For more than a week, I have pulled both in favor of Lifecards. An app that enables multiple images to be placed together, text added, resulting in a single document I can send.

Lifecards includes a large collection of templates (350!) in 20 categories. Each category is a group of templates around a particular theme. Templates have spaces for a variety of picture quantities from 1 to 4 and text boxes. If you change your mind about a template you chose you can change to another without having to reassign images. Images can be resized and twisted with tools that work the way you would think they should. Text editing is done through the usual iPhone / Touch text screen, with the added feature to change the font, text size and colors. Lifecards works equally well in portrait or landscape views:

If you need to stop working, closing the application saves your project to finish later. When done, the template, images and text is wrapped up into a single image which is saved to the built in Photos -> Photo Albums.

Here is one image I put together in just over a minute to send out to our team about a problem with desktop images that were effecting our presentations:

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