iPhone Smarts

Sing the Blues with Mikey

2009-12-26T04:27:00.000-08:00

The iPhone is a competent little field audio recorder. Since it can make CD-quality, 44.1 mhz, 16-bit recordings, it rivals the dedicated stereo field recorders in the under $500 price range.

The built-in mike is not up to the task of making professional recordings, but the Blue Mikey is. This $80 attachment is the best quality snap-in mike available for the iPhone. It has the largest condensers for it's size, allowing a nicer bass response for good, flat recordings.

The built-in mike is fine for recording audio notes and lectures, but where the Mikey excels is in making professional recordings of voice and music. The three-position input switch covers must audio recording situations, with the lowest setting just made for recording live performances. Expect to hear a lot of bootlegs recorded with Mikey in the future, since it's small enough to pass through security and remain inconspicuous while recording. Check out Derek Helmer's U2 recording. The Mikey's 5-position swivel head allows for a lot of positioning flexibility.

There's not a lot that's bad about the Mikey. It's biggest issues are that it doesn't fit snugly into the port of the iPhone, has little stereo separation (a weakness when recording sound effects) and no line input (the TuneTalk and iVoicePro both offer this.) But I think once you hear the quality of recordings, these won't annoy most.

I have been using the Mikey with the 4-track stereo RecordStudioPro app on my iPhone for recording professional demos, voiceovers and percussion loops. The Mikey can be can be placed 6 inches away from an amp at practice volume or can record a chorus in a cathedral. The two give the musician and producer a lot of flexibility to make CD-quality recordings anywhere with a minimum of fuss.

Tip: One issue with the mike attachments for the iPhone is that playback comes through the speaker, not through the headphones. This is especially annoying with multitrack recording apps. You can start playback, unplug the headphones and plug them back in to route the audio through the headphones, but it's a pain to do each time. For playback I find it easier to instead record to an empty track and mute it. If a track is being recorded, your iPhone will play through the headphones.

Comics on Your iPhone

2009-10-22T01:33:00.000-07:00

Two cool apps for your iPhone can make some impressive-looking comics from of your photos. PhotoArtist will convert your photos to comics drawings. Though these are just sets of filters, the results are very impressive. The real shortfall of this app is that you're limited to screen-size results.

Comic Touch is by far the best photo captioning software available for your iPhone. In addition to making clean balloons, it has an authentic comic strip font. The smudge tool is great, but the warp tools would probably best be replaced by graphic effects more like PhotoArtist has.

The two apps together make a good combo. (You thought I was going to say Dynamic Duo, didn't you?) Together they can make a comic photo of a friend that you can email from your iPhone that they'll be talking about and passing around for months.

Car Charge Fixed

2009-09-23T17:01:00.000-07:00

I've mentioned before about the charging issue caused when Apple removed the deprecated Firewire charger recently from iPhones and iPods. Griffin introduced Charge Converter which works with old connectors and new iPods. They're $24.95 and welcome news for those of us who were looking into the $500-$1000 it would cost to replace our old iPod ready car stereos.

Notes, Finally

2009-09-19T02:01:00.001-07:00

Notes finally sync with Mac Mail and Outlook. To enable notes:

Plug in your iPhone to your desktop.
In iTunes, click on your iPhone in the Library list.
Click on the Info tab.
Check the Notes box.
Click the Sync button.

Now open Mac Mail or Outlook. You will see all the notes from your iPhone and Mail synced on both your Phone and desktop. Note that notes won't transfer over the air, only by cable sync.

While it seems a small victory, it's one more step towards making your iPhone's Notes app indespensible. I've covered Notes Search option and the fact that more and more text, like street addresses, numbers and links are smartext that your iPhone can identify and trigger apps like mail, Safari and Maps. This gives you the ability to save huge blocks of text as a note on your desktop and transfer it over to your iphone.

You'd think from the interface of Notes on your iPhone that they're plain text. They're actually rich text, but you have no way of changing this on your iPhone. However, you can use rich text in notes created on your desktop. As you see here they iPhone can view these just fine. It can also send rich text notes as rich text email. So if you want to write up some fancy directions that you send out regularly, you can write these as a note on your desktop with formatting and then sync to your iPhone, the formatting sticks when your email the note. The annoying yellow note background will not be sent in your email.

Font, size and color translate provided the font is viewable on your iPhone. The Mail ToDo will appear in the note you your iPhone (as well as when a Note is sent as email) as text. And attachments don't transfer either. The paperclip marking where an attachment was in a note created in Mail is a graphic you can't do anything with.

App: RecordStudio Pro

2009-09-06T04:16:00.001-07:00

After examining the multi-track recorder apps in the App Store RecordStudio stood out. No frills here, just simplicity. Many others had tacky, confusing interfaces and a ton of features that looked easy to get lost in and seemed like they'd be better done later on a computer. Record Studio is a nice little musical scratchpad that records 4 CD-quality tracks.

The quality of the built-in 3Gs iPhone mic with RecordStudio is substantially better than you'd expect. You can set your iPhone on the edge of a table for recording acoustic strings, in front of an amp at low volume for amped instruments or hold it in your hand for vocals.

RecordStudio has a sleek interface and is no nonsense. You tap a track to put it in record mode and then tap the record button. You're rolling. And RecordStudio is very stable when it comes to laying down tracks. I'm seeing issues with this in competing apps.

One thing to be aware about this app is that you can't hear the track you're recording in the headphones. I assume this was done because of latency problems. What's amazing is that there are no latency issues with RecordStudio. These exist in apps like Garage Band and even in dedicated digital workstations. It's refreshing not to have to face them in RecordStudio. There's no punch-in or cue. While some may not like this, it keeps the controls to what's necessary.

RecordStudio gives you a flat "dry" recording with no effects and doesn't do mixdown. Competing multitrack apps for the iPhone seem to be limited on mixdown capabilities. And this is really best left to an app like Garage Band or Audacity. Once you send the tracks to your computer by WiFi you can set up patches that gate the noise and add effects to really sweeten your tracks. You'll be surprised with what the symbiotic relationship between RecordStudio and an app like Garage Band can create.

One nice feature is that you can import stereo backing tracks and still have three tracks to record. This allows you to add instrumental and beat tracks. RecordStudio can take short .aif file and loop them. This feature is Ideal for rapp and hiphop artists, but is also useful for composing. I created a bunch of loops in Garage Band with a Kaossilator and have these always handy on my iPhone for experimenting. There is also a metronome which takes up a track, but you can turn it off once you have three tracks down and free up the fourth track.

So will you record your next album in RecordStudio? Probably not, but you'll find yourself doing crude demos on the fly with it. The beauty of RecordStudio is that with a decent set of earbuds you can take it and record whenever or wherever inspiration strikes.

Getting Full Size Images Onto iPhone

2009-09-04T19:22:00.000-07:00

The Camera Roll is the only space on your iPhone capable of holding full size images that other apps have access too. It's not convenient to get them there, especially if you have multiple images, but it can be done. If you're viewing a large image on your iPhone in either Mail or in Safari, you can tap it and save it to your Camera Roll. (iTunes modifies all photos in the folder to be screen size to save space.)

Note that most photo processing apps on the iPhone shrink images in processing. So don't expect them to stay full size if you start tampering with them.

Mass Mailing Photos

2009-09-04T18:53:00.000-07:00

Photos now has a mass mailer built in:

Open your Camera Roll.
Tap the icon that has a photo with an arrow on the bottom left.
Tap the photos you want to send.
Press the Share button.
Press the Email button.

Nice for sending a lot of images. This shrinks the images to 800x600 on the 3Gs. You can theoretically fit more than 50 images in an email before risking the 10 meg limit of many email servers.

Battle of the Photo Fix Apps

2009-09-03T19:40:00.000-07:00

One weakness of any camera is that exposure isn't flawless. To get some shots looking really good you have to doctor them. iPhone's camera in the new 3Gs is pretty solid, but you still have those times you'd like to get the exposure right. If you want to email these photos directly from your iPhone, you need to be able to fix these on the fly. This post examines some of the quick fix apps for the iPhone that allow you to improve exposure before emailing a photo on it's way. While there are a lot of apps that do this, these are simple apps dedicated fixing photos typically with the push of a button, like iPhoto's enhance button. Most work by automatically lightening the mid-tones without burning out the highlights, adjusting contrast, saturating colors, sharpening and modifying color, or some combination of these filters.

This photo really gives these apps a workout. Watch the faces closely. Both are in shadow with uneven lighting, but the lighting is very different on each. Only parts of each image are underexposed so the test goes well beyond just lightening the images.

Jade You don't even have to press a button and it modifies the photo. There's a slider to tweak the filter. Jade can handle some very dark images well, but can leave skin looking mechanically enhanced on these images.

BetterPix This correction app has a Flash button and slider to fix exposure and as well as a Focus button and slider. The effects of this filter can be a little more subtle. The Focus filter can come in handy.

PerfectlyClr has a patented filter. It corrects when you load the photo. It also has a five slider tweaking set to monkey with the image and well as a FixDark button that does some extra work on the deep gray tones.

iFlashReady has three buttons: Flash, More Flash and High Flash. It also can turn images sepia as well as black and white. This is the only app without a slider to control the filter. The three settings seem to be well chosen.

You can judge the results for yourself:

Jade

BetterPix

iFlashReady

PerfectlyClr

PerfectlyClr FixDark Mode

My Conclusion All apps performed well on some photos. PerfectlyClr and iFlashReady have much stronger filters for lightening and taming tones than Jade or BetterPix. Both PerfectlyClr's FixDark button and iFlashReady's More Flash button do a solid job without making this image look unreal. PerfectlyClr can work a little harder but I think iFlashReady's More Flash button maintains a little more natural look. A downfall of PerfectlyClr is that gives you a shrunken final product with a maximum picture size of 800x600.

iPhone Car Charging Issues

2009-08-24T03:23:00.000-07:00

Having issues with your iPhone 3G or 3Gs not charging in the car? The problem is that once Apple switched from Firewire to USB connectors for iPods a few years back, they left the Firewire charger intact on the iPod. It was cheaper for third party charger makers to use the deprecated Firewire connection for charging instead of adjusting the voltage to charge by USB. This still worked with the first gen iPhone. Recently Apple dropped the Firewire connection from the plug so older chargers no longer connected.

Most newer chargers work fine. But look for "works with iPhone 3G" on the package to make sure.

App: TonePad Pro

2009-08-13T02:05:00.000-07:00

Hmmm. The Tenori-On $1,200 or TonePad Pro 99¢,. Which will I go for? For those not familiar with the Tenori-On, it's a visual musical instrument developed by Japanese artist Toshio Iwai with Yamaha. The basic premise is the "keyboard" is a 16x16 grid of LED buttons that light up when you play. Vertically the buttons control pitch and horizontally they control a 16-note sequencer. It sounds rather complex, but this is an amazingly intuitive way to play music. TonePad Pro simply and elegantly brings this concept to the iPhone.

You program the instrument as opposed to play it. By tapping the screen to turn the dots on or off you can create complex harmonics of up to 16 tones. The resulting composition plays short sinewave bursts with an echo that's mapped on the screen as it plays. Those with some musical theory behind them will immediately be able to map out complex melodies that would require up to four hands on the piano. For those who want to take the Zen approach, simply draw on your screen and you create some very rich patterns. There are some unique controls that allows you to shift up or down an octave, turn patterns on their side or randomly shuffle the dots.

These compositions can be shared with other TonePad users directly from your iPhones or emailed as ringtones and synced back to your iPhone. You can also play your compositions back into a computer or amp via the headphone out on your iPhone.

The ad-ridden free version does everything except create ringtones, so you can try before you buy and even import your compositions into TonePad Pro if you upgrade. While the Ternori-On has a few more features...okay a lot more features, TonePad Pro has a little more bang for the buck. Literally, the buck.

App: MobileMe iDisk

2009-07-31T02:23:00.001-07:00

MobileMe has now been seamlessly extended to your iPhone. There are already apps costing up to $10 that do this and some do a little more. But this is free, reliable and or course, Maclike.

For the most part, this app will work just like the MobileMe does when you access it remotely by desktop Safari. The iDisk file system boots quickly and even caches files for offline viewing. There are some folders that are noticeably missing: Backup, Library, Sites, Software and Web. To view these, just turn on System files in Settings.

You can view and play all the standard files that your iPhone supports, including Office, iWork, PDF, RTF, RTFD, TXT, HTML and QuickTime compatible audio and video. With the example of an RTFD file, you can view it, copy photos out of it for emailing, copy text out of it for adding to Notes, share it by sending an email link and delete it. Files you have viewed are cached and show up under the Recents tab for offline viewing.

MobileMe's sharing features are supported. When you share a file, you can set the link to expire or password protect it. Shared files even have their own tab for easy finding and sending. While zipped files, disk images and others are not viewable on your iPhone, you can send links to them.

Another feature which is exclusive to the MobileMe iDisk app is the ability to access other MobileMe users' Public folders. It will even search your addressbook and find other MM users. If you work or play in a Mac environment, this gives quick access to MM users public folders across the world.

Interestingly, the trees seems to upload faster than they do on desktop Safari. This adds yet another strength to MobileMe and is a nice implementation by Apple.

Mailing Full-Size Photos & lots of them

2009-07-27T20:19:00.000-07:00

Hold your finger over an image or thumbnail in your Photo Library and A little Paste Bubble pops up.
Slide your finger up to it and release it. It will turn blue and copy the full-size image to the clipboard.
Open an email.
Tough and hold inside the body of the email.
Press the Paste button.

You can paste this into the body of an email and send it. To mail multiple images:

Open your Camera Roll.
Tap the icon that has a photo with an arrow on the bottom left.
Tap the photos you want to send.
Press the Copy button.
Open an email.
Tough and hold inside the body of the email.
Press the Paste button.

Be wary of the 10 megabyte limit of some email servers.

Apps: Done is how todo should be done.

2009-07-23T03:06:00.000-07:00

Done (by Chilli X) is an elegant todo app is what a task manager for iPhone should be: simply useful. If you've tried others and are sick of the tacky graphics and the myriad of confusing screens, Done is easy on the eyes, simple to use and fits the most entries on the screen of any todo app I've tried. There are priorities and due dates available, but they're not required and don't get in the way for users who just want to enter something on the list and not have to overly think it.

The Sort function rocks. Shake your iPhone and completed items drop of the bottom of the list. If you've added priorities and due dates, the important and pertinent items will rise to the top of the list.

Another innovative feature is SnapShot. Tap the list button at the bottom center and your top six events are dumped as an image onto your camera roll. You can then assign this image as wallpaper. It's slightly inconvenient, but Apple has not allowed third party apps to assign wallpaper yet. You don't even needed to wake your iPhone to see the list. Just tap the Home button, view your list and the iPhone goes back to sleep in a few seconds.

In addition to using Done as a second mind for personal todo items, I use it as both a project management tool for work and a grocery list. For projects, I use the notes field to track hours and where the project stands. For groceries I keep a list of items, uncheck what I need and then shake the phone. The unchecked items rise to the top to the list.

Done also has a unique delete feature. Just turn the phone sideways and a giant button appears. Tap it and all checked items are deleted.

You can see individual lists or all your entries together. Done color categorizes entries, so if you want to view all items it's easy to tell what list they're from. All settings for Done are accessed from within the app so you don't have to go to systems settings to make a change.

Done is simple, flexible and looks like Apple made it. There's another version of done, so make sure you buy the one by Chilli X. It's worth the dollar.

App: Photo Sketch Lets You Skip Art Lessons

2009-07-20T03:52:00.000-07:00

Surprisingly the iPhone is rapidly becoming a powerful portable photo-manipulation platform. As the quality has improved to a focusing 3-megapixel camera in the 3Gs, almost 900 photo apps are now available, most of which have functions to change images right on your iPhone.

Photo Sketch turns a photo into a black and white charcoal drawing. Choose a photo, pinch to zoom, and set the parameters if needed. That's it. Photo Sketch goes to work. You can set the number of tones to 1, 3, 7 or 15 and the paper as grainy or smooth. I have noticed that some photos look better with less tones and some with more, so it's recommended that you try a few. I'd recommend 7 and 3 or 15 and 3.

The really powerful feature is image size. Even if your image was a tiny area of an image to start with, you can save renderings up to 2048 x 2048 in size. This allows you to make a high-quality 4-meg piece of art work from even tiny icons. Unfortunately iPhone's email will restrict the image to 800 x 800 for mailing, but the full size image will be saved in your camera roll for transferring to your computer.

One of the current limitations is that the app has no ability to adjust the exposure of the image you're rendering from for the best look. A little adjustment in an app like Free Photo Filters (actually one of the nicest apps for adjusting image exposure) will allow you to both control images for the correct lightness and sharpen blurry blowups for sketching. Slightly overexposed shots can look best.

This app meets the main criteria for being iPhonish: one easy-to-use screen. While not a must have for everyone, this is a fun app that shows off the powerful photo tool the iPhone has become.

Tripod Mount

2009-07-17T02:36:00.001-07:00

Keeping the camera still while shooting video, especially if you're in the frame, has always posed a problem, since the iPhone has no tripod mount. Here's a fix for that.

This is not a detailed set of instructions, but just a visual idea on how to create a tripod mount for your iPhone. The trip to the hardware store cost me $2, but the holder, a Griffin Window Seat, cost $29 so this is not the cheapest option. But it's extremely secure, portable and fits on most micro tripods. I'd recommend a micro tripod with wider legs for more stability.

I made this by running a carriage bolt through the hole in the back of the Window Seat bracket and then bolted on a hex connection nut that's 1/4" wide with 20 threads per inch. This is a standard nut that's the official US tripod mount size. I drilled a hole through the top of the nut for the carriage bolt to go through. This nut is actually a little short for connecting to a larger tripod, but another hex spacer nut the same size, a short bolt with the head severed and a lock washer would make an extension to fit any tripod.

I drilled a hole in the plastic for the camera to peek through. If the hole it too big, it may crack the plastic mount. If it's too small the lens will be blocked. Mine is not precise, but it works.

Tips:

For videos with you in them, the iPhone retains whatever focus distance you start with, so you'll need to focus on something the distance you plan to be from the camera. The exposure will change automatically. Just start recording and turn the camera around. You can edit the beginning off later.
Since the screen is where you can't see it when shooting, record with a mirror in front of you. That way you can see the screen and the camera at the same time.

Notes Supports Links

2009-07-08T19:00:00.000-07:00

Fascinating to open a note and see a link. Even more fascinating is what the link is. "place overnight and gave it 24." Turns out that my iPhone thinks this is an address and opens the location of a nearby hotel in Maps. Other links supported are the standard: email, urls and phone numbers. Put these in your notes and they're tappable and call up email, the browser or dial the number in question. So now you can type a list of links and click on them.

Camera: Adjusting Exposure

2009-06-28T17:14:00.000-07:00

There's no switch for this, but it's possible in some images. If the exposure is off, tap on something in the frame that is about the same distance as your subject. Tapping something lighter will darken the image. Tapping something darker will lighten the images. In the example the exposure is thrown way dark by the light coming from the window. By tapping on the iPhone screen on the floor just in front of the window the focus and exposure are readjusted to lighten the interior.

If you're taking a shot of two people and one has on dark clothes and one has on light clothes, tap on the appropriate person's clothes to lighten or darken the image. It's important that what you tap on is the same distance from the camera, or the key parts of the image will be out of focus.

Quit Applications

2009-06-28T17:09:00.001-07:00

When you exit an application, it's still running in the background. If an app snags, you can force quit it without having to reset the iPhone. To force quit an application:

Make sure you're in the app.
Hold the Sleep button on top until the Power Off switch appears.
Hold the Home button for about 8 seconds.

Wiping Your iPhone

2009-06-21T18:20:00.000-07:00

It's not a good idea to pass on an iPhone with any data on it. It's probably not even a good idea to leave an old one lying around with intact data on it. There's a simple way to wipe the contents of your iPhone so that sensitive data is gone.

From your Home Screen tap the Settings (Gears) icon.
Then: General>Settings>Erase All Content And Settings
Okay the prompts.

Wiping will take an hour or more, so make sure it's plugged into power if necessary.

iPhone Video

2009-06-19T19:07:00.000-07:00

The 3Gs adds excellent video capability with beautiful motion and nice audio.

Recording

Open the Camera app and slide the switch right to video.
Press the record button. Note that focus and orientation are locked at the start of the video so make sure the camera is oriented correctly and that what you want to focus on is in the middle of the screen before you press the Record button. The macro will focus down to about six inches.
Press the Record button again to stop recording.

Playback

Press preview button on the left to view the video.
To edit drag the ends of the timeline in. Press Play to make sure you have edited correctly, then hit the trim button.
To Share hit the Share button with the arrow. You can email, send to MobileMe, YouTube, or by MMS (if enabled.)

Voice Memos

2009-06-19T18:35:00.000-07:00

The Voice Memos app is simple and quick. You're supposed to be able to record with a compatible stereo mic, but Apple hasn't made it clear which ones work. Though you get a warning saying it won't work, Belkin's TuneTalk stereo mic works. You can mail and send voice memos by MMS (if the service is available.) They also sync automatically with iTunes and appear in a Voice Memos playlist.

To record, tap the round red Record button. To pause, tap the Pause button. To stop, tap the lack square Stop button.
To view memos, tap the List button on the right.
Top edit a memo, tap the Trim button. Drag the sides in and press the Play button to make sure you've edited correctly. When finished, tap the Trim Voice Memo button.
To email or send by MMS, tap the Share button.

To title a voice memo press the > indicator twice and then press the > next to Custom.

Copy and Paste

2009-06-19T18:15:00.000-07:00

This long awaited feature is here and delivers more than expected. Not only can your copy and paste text, but you can copy and paste intact sections of web pages.

In Text Apps:

Tap and hold where you want to start highlighting. Release.
Select All selects the entire document.
Select selects a word. You can then drag either direction to highlight more. Tap Cut or Copy.
To add elsewhere, tap and hold where you want to paste. Tap the paste button.

In Safari:

Tap and hold until the blue window appears. Drag the window up, down, in or out with the blue dots.
Press the Copy button.
To add to another app, tap and hold where you want to paste. Tap the paste button.

In Email you can paste photos and correctly formatted text. In text apps, like Notes, you just get the text. Incidentally, you can copy from email attachments you get.

Home Really Goes Home

2008-11-26T13:24:00.000-08:00

When you have a lot of Home screens, flipping to get to the first screen where most of us keep our most important apps can be tedious. Just press the Home button in an home screen and you're taken back to the first screen. Press it again and it calls up Spotlight to search your iPhone.

Taking Video Stills

2008-10-14T03:11:00.000-07:00

With your iPhone's hidden screenshot utility you can grab stills from any video you can view. This includes YouTube vids, iPod vids, Net vids, email vids, and those stored on your iPhone with apps like Air Sharing. There's a size restriction: the images will be 320 pixels high by a width of up to 480.

While viewing a video, tap the screen to call up the controls.
When you get to the frame you want, tap the Pause button.
Tap the screen to hide the controls.
Hold the Home and Sleep buttons at the same time and release them.
The images are stored at Home/Photos/Camera Roll.

Cropping Photos

2008-10-13T09:56:00.000-07:00

Though it's not intended, you can crop photos within iPhone's Photo viewer. The limitation is that images are restricted to screen size of 420 x 320, either in portrait or landscape. The secret is the hidden screenshot app.

Go to Home/Photos and choose the photo you want to crop.
Unpinch to enlarge the photo to the magnification you'd like to crop to.
Tap the screen to hide the controls.
Hold the Home and Sleep buttons at the same time, then let go. You'll see a white flash when the screen shot takes.
Tap the screen to show the controls.
Tap iPhone Libray/Photo Albums/Camera Roll.

Your cropped image can be emailed or post to your MobileMe gallery like any image.