iPhone Life - Best Apps, Top Tips, Great Gear

When Apple decided to remove the headphone jack from its iPhone line, audiophiles were deeply concerned that listening to compressed Bluetooth audio would greatly diminish the sonic experience. Since then, iPhone customers have voted with their wallets by not only accepting the wireless audio change but embracing it, as the success of the AirPods indicates. Still, even though the audio quality concerns were overblown, the idea of sticking plastic cylinders into the ear canal was not only distasteful to some, it also could be downright painful for those with small or sensitive outer ears. Over the ear headphones solve this problem, but have discomfort issues, primarily when it comes to extended listening sessions. So when Marshall announced the second iteration of its successful Monitor headphones, I was cautiously enthusiastic. My review of the original Monitor was so positive that I wasn't sure how Marshall could improve on the original design. I was so wrong. The Marshall Monitor II ($319.99) are by far the best over the ear headphones I have ever used to date.

Join iPhone Life’s CEO David Averbach and Editor in Chief Donna Cleveland as they lead a free, live workshop on Wednesday, March 25, at 4 p.m. EST to help you stay safe and connected during this unprecedented time. With the growing outbreak of the coronavirus in our communities, it’s hard not to worry about the health risks that COVID-19 poses to us and our loved ones. Many of you may be wondering how to safely sanitize your iPhone, optimize your home office while working remotely, and stock up on essential items without leaving your house. Get answers to all this and more when you register for your free spot in the workshop.

If you come from Windows Mobile and are into playing MAME arcade games, you may well remember my full article dedicated to the emulation of arcade machines, including MAME, on the platform. (Note that the linked article doesn't show inline images; if you need them, check out THIS instead.)

Fortunately, on the iDevice, it's also possible to play MAME games. No, unlike on Windows Mobile, not the newer, vastly superior (NeoGeo / CPS), “only” the older ones, but it's still more than nothing, isn't it? And it's free – and is also compatible with several Bluetooth game controllers (see below).

 

  I enjoy listening to many different types of music. I think with merging all the different types of mobile platforms it help bring music to everyone. We can listen to music almost anywhere at any time we choose.  Our music is usually no more than an arm length away.   Regardless, of the type of music you like, it must sound good to you personally for you to enjoy it.

 

Today, I've helped a friend restore some contacts onto his iPhone. As the experience I gathered may be useful to you as well, I let you know.

First, on my Mac, while I had the contacts in the Windows version of Microsoft Outlook 2010 under Parallels Desktop, I had iTunes solely under my Mac OS X and didn't want to install it under Parallels to keep the Parallels image size down. (Which is of paramount importance when you use Time Machine to back up the contents of your computer, including the disk images of your Parallels virtual machines and want to save as much storage as possible.) After all, there are only two cases when it's indeed worth having iTunes in your virtual machine if you, otherwise, use the OS X version to synchronize your iOS devices:

As you may have gathered from my last post about apps, I don’t get a lot of sleep. As a result,  I’m quite the coffee addict. In fact, I like coffee almost as much as I like my iPhone! (What?  Who said that?  Can you believe this guy?) If it weren’t for coffee, I’d probably go into a deep sleep for like, ten years.

But I don’t have time to do that, iPhone Life-ers.

I gotta move, and I gotta shake! 

With the release of iOS 5 today, there has been some debate at my organization of which OS version we should build for in future iOS apps, iOS 4 or iOS 5. Building to accommodate multiple OS versions is more time consuming which translates to greater costs, and is not always an option. In general, we lean towards the safe side and build to accommodate more users by building for an older OS. However, this also limits what new APIs we make use of in development.


As has been mentioned some weeks ago, it's pretty easy to record GPS information and, later, incorporate it into photos taken on a non-GPS-enabled camera.

Unfortunately, the current camera lineup doesn't really please people that would like to geotag their shots. Neither the, because of the high price-value ratio or high image quality (IQ), most popular point-and-shoot (P&S) or DSLR (including mirrorless [aka EVIL] or some lower-end [Sony] SLT) cameras have built-in GPS modules.

Some examples of the current, most popular cameras lacking any GPS support:

P&S-style "luxury" fixed-lens camera

Me and Steve Jobs

By Todd Bernhard

With the passing of my personal hero Steve Jobs, I have to take a moment to reflect upon how I got here and the role Apple and Steve Jobs played in my life.  As Yogi Berra said, when you see a fork in the road, TAKE IT!  There are many twists and turns that led each of us to the path we are on today so indulge me as I reflect on my path.  ONE MORE THING... Sign your organ donor card.  We had a few extra years of Steve Jobs thanks to the selflessness of a 20 year old.

Many users who buy the ipad today purchase it not just for fun but use productively.   It can be used for an infinite number of tasks.  Just to name a few the iPad 2 is a work horse of a word processor and much more.  It also offers applications to record audio and video.  This is a great way to capture many memories or create your own soundtracks.  Like I said before the list is never ending.  The iPad 2 grouped with the appropriate app and hardware can produce professional sounding audio tracks for things like podcasts.  The video recordings aren't  all that great with only a 2 meg camera on

The iW1 from iHome is a superb AirPlay compatible wireless speaker. I was the first person to get a review unit, so more or less the first guinea pig user. Consequently, I had some guinea pig type problems with it, but with help from the folks at iHome, was able to get it working quite well. It is arguably the best combination of features I have yet seen in a portable speaker system.

Riding my recumbent bike, is one of my great joys. Another great joy is tracking my trips and playing music along the way. For this purpose, I need a good handlebar mount that will allow me to hold my PDA in plain view securely.

My first bike mount was a disaster. I thought my phone was securely fastened, but on the first bump, the unit went flying, the battery cover in one direction, the body, and battery in other directions. When I retrieved it, the screen was shattered, and I had to get a new phone. That bike mount was an expensive proposition above its initial cost.

Some have reasonably argued that full fledged RPGs are a bit too overwhelming for the portable market where the majority of users only spend minutes at a time playing games.  Several developers have attempted to provide the RPG fix without the RPG commitment, and Pocket Warriors is one of those games.  It actually fits the mold somewhat well, except for the fact that it’s so watered down the game play becomes redundant and boring rather quickly.  At least it looks pretty and sounds halfway decent, though.

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