Battle of the Map Apps

A lot of buzz surrounding the whole Apple Maps issue. A lot of people say it's hardly noticeable, for others... disastrous.

On this side of the planet, here in the Philippines... this is the situation. I tried being fair, entering the name of a popular city rather than some obscure street. These were my results each with the same search parameters simply entered in Google Maps, bing maps, and iOS Maps. Only Google knew of the city.

What are your funny map app stories unique to where you live?

iPhone 5 Phever

Now that Apple has announced the iPhone 5, I think the official keynote & presentation was kinda blah. I think this is how Apple should've launched the iPhone 5. Hehehehehe! ENJOY!

If The Glove Doesn't Fit... (Ralph Lauren Touch Glove Review)

Touchscreens are the standard for smartphones now. They're fun and easy to use... except during cold weather.

I recently came from Chicago where the temp hit -1ºC. Nothing extreme but enough to warrant the use of gloves. My Xperia ray was suddenly such a burden to use... so I began to search for decent looking touch gloves.

Unlike the older resistive screens, which work on pressure, the new crop of capacitive touchscreen need to sense your body electricity to function. Wearing gloves inhibits this conductivity thus eliminates your phone's responsiveness to your touch. A new market for capacitive touch gloves emerged much like the capacitive stylus.

So I stumbled upon Ralph Lauren's Touch Gloves at a mall and tried them on. And sadly, they don't work well at all. The screen responds to a tap, but can't seem to recognize a full swipe all the time. It will work sometimes, but the frustration just makes you want to take off your gloves all together... or just cut the tips off. Final verdict... forget these gloves all together. Absolutely useless.

There are other gloves that work much better at 1/5 the cost (The Ralph's run for US$60-70 pair) but don't look at nice. So for now, I'm still looking...

iOS Tip Of The Day: Save Your Home...Button.

Almost all iOS owners know the inconvenience of the non-responsive Home Button. It is the weakest link in the iOS hardware platform and yet using it is also the most required action. This leaves you with a perfectly working iOS device...EXCEPT for a Home Button that either doesn't respond or need to be mashed just to respond.

Jailbreaking is an option. It enables gesture (swipe) access to almost all the Home Button functions. But what about people that don't know how, or just don't want to Jailbreak their iOS devices? Well, on iOS 5, Apple has a feature that can help minimize the use of the Home Button.

It's found in the Settings Menu on your device.

Simply scroll down to the General menu

Then go to Accessibility

Then Assistive Touch.

Once enabled, you will now have a translucent button that floats over your desktop. The button placement is dynamic and can be moved around, it will also automatically move out of the way of the virtual keyboard.

Pressing this will bring up a gesture box, and the Home Button is one of them!

Ever need to text someone while swimming? (Liquipel)

Ever jump into a lake or a pool and forget your iPhone was in your pocket?

Ever have your phone fall into a toilet?

Ever think... "gee, I really need to call ________." while you're in the shower?

It's just so frustrating when your gadgets can't handle a little water right?  Well, no more!

Introducing... LIQUIPEL!!!

It's NOT a case.  It's a coating.

Ok, seriously, this has got to be one of the coolest non-gadget, gadget-related products out.  What they do is, they take your existing gadget (currently a limited line-up), place it in a small chamber and coat it with their water-repellant coating. I just wish there was some way to have this done here in the Philippines without going to the US. 

A Little Friday Tech Humor : Siri in the Philippines

I'm sure there are countless issues with Siri's accent recognition... specially if you're from other countries... here in the Philippines, we have our own version.

Introducing, Vangie!

Merry Christmas!

Maligayang Pasko!

Joyeux Noël!

Fröhliche Weihnachten!

Rainy Friday Traffic App... WAZE

Last time, I wrote about the MMDA's new traffic app.  Comes in quite handy for a general view of traffic in the metro.  But sometimes, green/yellow/red doesn't really give you a full picture.  How slow/fast is traffic actually moving?

For those with data connections on their Android or iPhone, we like tweeting or updating our statuses on our current traffic condition.  It somehow saves our sanity.  But what if there was an app that could that automatically... while helping contribute to the traffic data?

Enter WAZE.  A social-networking app specifically for traffic.  Sign up for a free account and get moving!

The app shows actual Waze users that are on the road, and gives their over-all traffic speed on any given road.  No road for where you are? No problem, it can record your route and now will show your new road on the map! Accident? Flood? Wanna share a traffic mishap with everyone else? It allows that too.

It needs a data connection and GPS to accurately map your location and report traffic conditions in your area, you can specify the radius around you (the smaller the radius the faster the updates) and this is done in real-time. The more people are on it, the more accurate the traffic reporting will be! Try it out!

**This post has been brought to you by Smart LTE**

**No LTE signal here in the Fort, HSPA only**

4S: Sign-up, Siri, Speed, Santa (iPhone 4S in the Philippines)

Just in time for Christmas!  Don't you just LOVE corporate timing?  Yes, within hours of each other, both Smart and Globe have announced release dates for the iPhone 4S in the Philippines... and the magic date is...

DEC 16, 2011

Sign up now using the links above!

NEW iPHONE ANNOUNCED!!! Oh Wait...

...It's just the same old iPhone 4... but it now in white!  Now that the iPhone 4 is close to it's EOL (End of Life) cycle... Apple has found a way to keep sales up until they can time the release of the next iPhone 4G (4GS, 4GSS, 4.0001G, or whatever else they'll call it)

But this is great news for people who just bought the iPhone 4 in black... now you can buy a second matching pair to complete your formal/casual iPhone 4 set!  Or, sell off your existing iPhone 4  so you can buy the new white one and be cool again!

Sorry, my enthusiasm is showing... this news may be the coolest thing yet since this iPhone.

"Oh, they've encased him in carbonite. He should be quite well protected."

Society6 is selling a Steve Jobs in Carbonite case for the iPhone 3/3GS/4.  What better way to keep Steve close to you at all times.  Safe and well-preserved.  US$35.  May The Steve be with you...

iPhone 4 Unlock for ALL Basebands Announced!

*April Fool's Day Prank* FINALLY!!!!  In a surprise announcement, the iPhone Dev Team announced that they finally have a stable, working unlock for the iPhone 4 that is baseband independent.  This will also work on the iPhone 3GS. (Baseband 3.10.1 and up)

After months of unstable trials and failed attempts, they stumbled upon an unlock exploit that works regardless of baseband version or firmware version.

The Dev Team has released a unified unlock tool for all iPhone versions and until Apple patches the hole, it should work on future updates as well.  It takes advantage of a coding error in the Apple Activation Server, rather than the phone itself.  Although the actual process is being kept a secret, the basic idea is that the unlock acts as a proxy between the phone and the server.  The unlock gathers activation info from the server, then activates the phone.  And in an ironic coincidence, this also unlocks the App Store allowing authentic paid apps to be downloaded for free.  Similar to the Gevey SIM in the process, but no user intervention (other than clicking UNLOCK) is needed.

This is a completely untethered unlock.

Download the unlock tool here.

Please share this news with those who you think would appreciate it before the exploit is patched!

*Update, this was meant as an April Fool's Day prank (and it worked) Since it is no longer April 1, I added a warning at the beginning of the post*

Splish-splash: A DesignGo case review

Summer is here, and that means beach trips are coming up.  But what about your music player or smartphone?  If you've got an Android, iPod Touch, or iPhone, you may want to invest in a waterproof pouch.

There are a lot of pouches out there that offer protection, but I like DesignGO for the price that they offer.  At P500 (or approx US$12) at R.O.X. in Fort Bonifacio, it's as good as any of the other plastic-pouch solutions out there.  Plus it has a small headphone extension so you can plug in your headphones while keeping the pouch completely sealed.

The clear side also allows full use of your touchscreen so all functions can easily be accessed.  Unfortunately, the extension jack only supports stereo out, no mic connection so making calls while your phone is in the case is a no-go.

Although not IP rated, I wouldn't really do anything extreme with ANY soft case.  If you need it to be submersible however, you may want to look at the hard cases from H2O Audio instead.  But I'd pick DesignGO's water pack over any of the other soft cases that sell for 3x more.  Pelican cases offer additional shock protection aside from mild water resistance, while Otterbox only offers shock protection, not water resistance.

Who Needs a Magic Trackpad????

I'm not a big fan of trackpads.  I think they are a necessary evil for laptops (although for mobile devices, I still prefer IBM's TrackPoint) but they are my least preferred pointing device.  Recently, my Apple Magic Mouse started giving me tracking problems (completely stopped tracking on my wooden desk, doesn't track on bond paper or mouse pads, but it does track on shiny cardboard packaging only)

While Apple is running diagnostics on my Magic Mouse, I didn't want to buy a cheap mouse nor did I want to waste money on the Magic Trackpad.  I did find a better solution: iTap Mobile's Touchpad app for iOS.  (And recently, they added an Android version as well!  Yay!)

Basically, it turns your iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad into a wireless trackpad and keyboard.  If like me, you use your computer on your LCD TV, having a compact, wireless keyboard & pointing device comes in quite handy for watching movies, controlling media playback and couch surfing.

So, until my Magic Mouse is fixed, I'm using this as my primary trackpad on my home computer.  It works on both Mac and Windows, controlled from either iOS or Android!

RIM: Do Not Pull Kik From BlackBerry – An Open Letter to Kik Users

Shortly after going viral (1 million users in 2 weeks - Facebook took almost a year to reach their first million), Kik Messenger was pulled from the Blackberry Appworld.  This is a sad day for Blackberry users, since it seems that RIM is feeling threatened by Kik.  For those that don't know, Kik is a cross-platform messenger that allows instant, real-time chat between Blackberry, Android, and iOS (both the iPhone and iPod Touch) devices.

RIM: Do Not Pull Kik From BlackBerry – An Open Letter to Kik Users

I'm not fond of having so many messengers.  I have MSN and YM... then there's Google Talk, and Facebook Chat.  I'm hoping for the next big messaging app to come so I can ditch the rest.

Maybe Kik can merge or sell their tech to Facebook.  Considering how lame Facebook chat is, maybe a Kik merger would help stabilize Facebook's system and allow a much cooler Facebook Mobile experience!