On today’s episode of the Small Biz Go Mobile podcast for AT&T, I teach you how to combine Apple’s digital assistant Siri with one of my favorite mobile apps, Evernote. I’m a serious Evernote user, but sometimes I don’t want to have to type out what I’m thinking, I just want to dictate it! So what I do is use Siri to take down my thoughts and automatically email them to my Evernote email address. Want to know how to set this up for yourself? Head on over to AT&T’s Small Business site and listen to my lastest podcast.
Tag: iphone
Turn by Turn Navigation and Real Time Traffic comes to iPhone with New Maps App!
While Google Maps has provided GPS-esque turn-by-turn navigation on Android for free for quite some time, iPhone users have been left in the dark. But with iOS 6, the latest version of Apple’s mobile operating system, Google is being kicked out of the Maps app, and Apple is taking over with their own technology that provides many of the features iPhone users have been clamoring for, including navigation.
But that’s not all! Real-time traffic analysis and crowd-sourced traffic data comes into play as well. This means that not only can you get ultra-reliable traffic data built into your navigation, but the app can automatically calculate faster routes based on actual and up-to-the-minute traffic conditions and ask you if you’d like to take a different route. It even automatically calculates how much time you’d save!
The final feature of the upgraded maps shows you 3D views of major cities in stunning detail. While this doesn’t have a business purpose I can think of, I can’t wait to play around with these new maps :)
A digital assistant in your car: Siri coming to BMW, GM, Mercedes, Land Rover, Audi, Toyota, Chrystler, Honda and Jaguar in 12 months or less
Apple’s announcements at the WWDC keynote today are off the chain! This just in: Siri is going to start being integrated into cars so you can use your digital assistant straight from your iPhone without taking your hands off the wheel! Apple today is announcing a huge number of car manufacturers who will be integrating Siri this year, including BMW, GM, Mercedes, Land Rover, Audi, Toyota, Chrystler, Honda and Jaguar! Not only that, but this integration will be happening in “12 months or less” according to Apple, meaning that we’ll start seeing Siri integration in automobiles as early as this fall!
Along with that announcement, Siri is getting a ton of new features in the latest version of Apple’s mobile operating system, iOS 6, including:
– Sports knowledge (scores and info about players. She can now answer the question, “Who’s taller, Kobe or Lebron?” for instance)
– OpenTable reservations so you can book dinner at a restaurant hands-free
– Rotten Tomatoes integration for movie times, trailers, and more!
The announcements at WWDC are coming fast, so stay tuned to this space for the latest!
Cricket Wireless To Offer Pre-paid NO CONTRACT iPhone 4S and iPhone 4 Starting June 22
Sometimes the tech news headlines come out of left field! Cricket is not only going to be offering the current, top-of-the-line iPhone 4S as a prepaid phone with no contract, but they are even subsidizing the price! Check this out, while a 16GB unlocked no contract iPhone 4S would cost $649.99 straight from Apple, Cricket is able to offer it for $499 without locking you into a contract! For $100 less a.k.a. only $399, you can pick up a no contract 8GB iPhone 4, which is still a killer phone.
The no-contract plans they’re offering sound pretty great as well—$55 for unlimited text/talk and data. Yes, you read that right, the $55 price point includes unlimited DATA. Now, to be fair, they will slow/limit your service past 2.3GB but for normal use that should be perfectly fine for most people provided you take advantage of WiFI when you’re home or at the office.
Cricket will be selling the no contract iPhone starting June 22, but if you want one then you better head over to Cricket’s website and put your name down today.
Venmo To Vegas: A Simple, Free Way to Pay Your Friends and Associates
I’m at that age where everyone I know is getting married, and that means one thing: parties. Specifically, for me as a guy this means bachelor parties, w00t! So this week, according to Bing, was the best time to book a July flight to Las Vegas because the prices would only go up. No one likes to travel alone, so since my buddy Paul will be heading out to the same party we decided to fly together.
I hopped onto one of the “flight deal” sites and bought two round-trip tickets to Vegas with my credit card. I told Paul over Gchat that I had booked our tickets, and asked him how he wanted to pay for his half.
“Do you use Venmo?”, he asked.
Well guess what? I do now! Venmo is a simple, fun, and free way to pay your friends. It took me less than 5 minutes to sign up with facebook, verify my bank account, and bill my friend for his part of our flight. Read More
The iPhone 4, still the device of my life
There are tons of great new dev
ices out there, and there are even more rumors of greater devices to come. Despite the revolutionary form and function of the iPad 2 and the siren-like draw of Siri’s voice, something about the “all in the palm of my hand” functionality of my iPhone 4 and the dreams of greater things to come has kept me using the same device for over a year and kept my upgrade money, so far, in my wallet.
Although I think that it is totally fun to tell Siri that you love her, or to ask her silly questions and laugh at the answers, I don’t actually see a lot of utility in talking to my phone as an interface, especially since I don’t do much driving. Outside of Siri, I feel like my iPhone 4 can do everything that the 4S can do, and for that matter everything that I need a mobile device to do. I get my business and personal email all in one place, while the handy grouping of apps puts all of my social media into one small corner of my screen. I can read all types of documents, handle all my faxing business, and can even hop on the command line of a web server. And if you don’t have one yet, I believe you can get one for a lot less cash then the S model. Read More
SOL Republic Delivers impressive quality for under $100
I recently got a demo pair of SOL Republic Tracks headphones and I couldn’t have been more excited. Honestly, I felt like a kid on Christmas morning when I unboxed them. Everyone with a mobile lifestyle knows that headphones are a vital part of your day. As a New Yorker, I wear headphones a lot; like, really a lot. I wear them on the subway, in the gym, at my desk, and just about anytime that I take a phone call.
Because I do all of these different things with my headphones, I need durability; but I also want something that is comfortable and cool-looking. It would be a bonus if they could also control my iPhone, and maybe even actually produce good sound. At the same time, I don’t want to break the bank buying headphones. It’s hard to explain to your wife that she has to wait to replace the dishwasher because your headphones make the latest Ratatat single sound REALLY awesome.
I’ve got to say, these Tracks headphones had me covered on all counts. Read More
Box.net Wants iOS Users, Offers 50GB of Free Storage As Bait
To combat Apple’s iCloud offering for iOS 5 users, the Box.net cloud storage service has announced its “50gigs for 50 days” promotion for anybody who downloads the latest version of the mobile to their iPhone or iPad.
Box.net is a rival to the popular Dropbox, Sugarsync, and now iCloud services that offer similar features and options in regards to cloud storage. All of them have free storage offerings as a basic package (2-5GB). Anything after that, you have to opt for a paid personal or business plan that start around $10/month, or refer a ton of people to get additional free storage in smaller megabyte increments. Read More
AT&T Video Capture
We have talked about technical tools that are great for field professionals more than once. But today I am more excited than usual to cover a great new tool from our sponsor, AT&T. Everyone’s smart phone has a great new video camera mounted to the back, but when we want to share these videos with our friends, family, or in our case, a co-worker, we have to rely on YouTube or some video hosting service. By the time that you have uploaded it and send someone a message to look at it, the moment has passed. Well no more, to the cloud!
AT&T has announced the AT&T video capture apllication which enables businesses to stream live and pre-recorded videos from handsets in the field to co-workers in the office. The desktop gets a web-based monitoring interface, so you can watch videos in real-time from your desk, archive and organize these feeds, and communicate with users in the field about what you are seeing. All this real time interaction greatly increasing the speed and agility of your organization. Read More
iTunes 10.5 is Here! Update now and install iOS 5 RIGHT NOW!
It’s just before midnight here on the east coast, but it looks like Apple got iTunes 10.5 out the door ahead of schedule. If you want to be the first kid on the block running the latest version of Apple’s mobile operating system (available for iPod touch, iPhone and iPad), then you need to head on over to Apple’s site right now and download iTunes 10.5.
Once you get iTunes 10.5 up and running (it’s painless if you use software update, though the installation process is a bit slow), it’s just a matter of syncing your iDevices to your computer for (hopefully) the last time. Because with iCloud software backing up your data into the cloud (and a free 5 GB of storage to boot!), the new iOS 5 brings tons of awesome features, and we can’t wait to get it on all of our devices, so we’re not going to delay this post any longer—find your cables, connect your devices, and get your iOS 5 on! Just be sure to let us know what you think in the comments!
Update: Full list of iOS 5 features and supported devices. Read More