HOUR 1:
Tech News & Commentary
David in Montgomery, Alabama listens on WLWI 1440 AM and asked: “I am curious about how I can use this cloud technology with my iPhone, iPad and my iMac. I’m not real savvy when it comes to network and stuff like that. But I would love to hear more and find out how it works and how I can use it.”
iCloud is built into iOS 5 for your iPhone and iPad and into Mac OS X Lion for your iMac. If all your devices are updated to their latest respective operating systems, the rest is easy. On your iPhone and iPad, you’ll find an iCloud setting where you can turn it on and assign a user to that device, use the same user for both devices. On your iMac, you’ll find iCloud under System Preferences, use the same user again.
That’s pretty much it. Once that’s done, depending on what you choose to share on each device, you’ll start backing up your email, contacts and photos on all your devices. One of my favorite features from iCloud is Photo Stream. Basically, it automatically uploads every new picture in your camera roll on your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad 2 and downloads them to your devices on the same iCloud account, when connected to WiFi. If you want to use this feature, go to your iCloud Settings on your iDevice and turn it “ON”. Photo Stream also works with iPhoto on your Mac. After an update, you can have it download the pictures on your Photo Stream as well.
iCloud works even on Windows machines. If you’re an iTunes for Windows user, and you’re running Windows Vista or 7, iCloud will find its way on your computer automatically with an iTunes update. It is more limited on a Windows computer than it is on a Mac, but it will work the same way as it does on a Mac for syncing iTunes purchases (music, books, movies/TV) between your iPhone or iPad and your Windows computer.
A word of warning. iCloud will use a lot of datat if you’re not careful. Every time it syncs something to or from your iPhone, that uses data. Every time you buy a song on your phone, it sends it to your iPad also, and your computer. Every time you create a document on your computer, it sends it to your iPhone also, and your iPad – and all of that sending takes bandwidth. With a 2GB data cap in most cases, you can see the overruns coming.
So while iCloud is a nice concept, the automatic real-time copying of information through the cloud, you need to remember that when it comes to your iPhone and iPad, wireless is not free. Watch those caps!
For more information, tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast.
Consumer
Reports Feature with Carol Mangis
E-book readers figure to be a very popular gift this holiday season, especially given how relatively cheap they’ve gotten says Consumer Reports Web Editor Carol Mangis. If you’re having trouble deciding between the Nook Simple Touch and the Amazon Kindle Touch here’s some advice.
The “Into Tomorrow” team discussed the latest apps that they
have been playing with recently.
For Android:
• Mark recommends: FREEdi YouTube Player, FREE
“People on YouTube who upload lots of videos can organize them into playlists, to make it convenient for their subscribers and followers to view all the related videos on a particular subject. This is especially useful in episodic videos, where the order of viewing is important to the topic. The YouTube mobile and desktop web apps no longer allow you to begin playing a playlist and automatically progress from one video to the next. They used to, but they don’t any longer. If you have an Android smartphone, the YouTube app still has this feature. But if you are a Kindle Fire owner like me, and you are BLOCKED from using official Google apps, you can’t HAVE the YouTube app. Enter FREEdi YouTube Player. This free app from the Amazon Appstore and Android Market couldn’t be simpler to use. Enter the YouTube user name and it shows you all the playlists that user has created. Select a playlist and it shows you all the videos in that playlist. Select a video and it starts playing there, and then continues automatically to the next video on the list. BAM! Couldn’t be simpler. If you’re a fan of episodic videos on YouTube, and you have a Fire or some other device that cannot run the real YouTube app, FREEdi YouTube Player is your ticket to kicking back and watching videos. It’s free, like the name.” — Mark
For iOS:
• Rob recommends: FingerFace, $0.99
“A fun app you can use to create “finger faces”. You can choose from different funny faces, hairstyles and decorations. You first take a picture of your finger … or two … or three. Then, you crop the image and bring it to life by adding funny faces, retro clothing and accessories and more. It takes only a few seconds to do your own creation. You can adjust the clothing to fit your fingers properly. After you’re finish editing your masterpiece, you can easily share it on Instagram or save it on your iDevice and share on your social networks.”
— Rob’s Creations:
• Chris recommends: Macy’s Believe-o-Magic, FREE
“Now, when you mail your letter to Santa at Macy’s, you can use the magic of augmented reality to bring characters from the animated holiday classic “Yes, Virginia” to life. Just visit any Macy’s Believe Station and this enchanting app will let you pose for holiday photos with Virginia and her friends in full animation. Then, you can use these pictures to create festive, customized holiday cards you’ll want to share with family and friends for years to come.”
Tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast for more details.
What are your favorite apps?Let us know!
For more information, tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast.
Guest in this hour:
Tom Sumner, President – Yamaha Electronics Corp. USA
If you’re looking to improve or add to your home theater gadgets collection, our next guest has some cool ideas for you.
John in Peru, Illinois listening on WLPO 1220 AM asked: “I’m looking to purchase an app. I have an iPod Touch, an iPhone 4 and an iPad. We have a Wi-Fi connected printer, and I want to be able to print documents and pictures from any of those devices. Any suggestions would do.”
There are several apps that can help you, but you will have to pay for them. Have a look at PrintCentral Pro. It will let you print your documents and photos … even if you’re not connected to your home network. This app costs $8.99 in the App Store.
If you have a Mac, you can also take a look at Printopia 2. It costs $19.95, but it lets you print from iOS’s built in AirPrint and it will let you save files on your computer as PDF documents as well.
For more information, tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast.
Debbie in Columbia, Missouri listening on KFRU 1400 asked: “One of my children is leaving for 27 months with the Peace Corps in West Africa. She doesn’t want to take her present laptop, and is considering a notebook-type. I’d like to get her one for Christmas, but not sure what I should be looking for. Of course, we’ll want to Skype and email, but she would like potential to post photos, videos, write reports on projects, etc. We don’t want to spend a ton of money, due to potential theft. Any thoughts?”
If that’s all she has to do, have you considered a netbook? It would be cheap, so at least the theft possibility would be less of a concern, it would be small and light enough not to bother her too much if she needs to carry it around, and it would have a long battery life for those times she may not have access to stable power.
Take the Acer Aspire One, for example. You can pick one up for $250, it will include a webcam for Skype, a built in card reader to transfer those pictures and movies, and it only weighs two and a half pounds.
One downside of that particular netbook could be the 4 hours battery life, but for almost the same price you can pick up an ASUS netbook, with the same specs and 10 hours of battery life.
You can consider other options … tablets, for example, can be a choice, but they’re more limited when it comes to transferring video and pictures from a camera. And, it’s not so easy to use them to work on reports. Laptops can do anything netbooks can do and more, but you’ll be paying more for them and they will typically be heavier.
For more information, tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast.
Willy in Columbia, Missouri listens online and asked: “I’m interested in a tablet. Wondering which is the most inexpensive, well-rounded tablet.”
With an active market like there is now with tablets, manufacturers should eventually drive down prices. In fact the introduction of Kindle Fire has already started that process and Android has already started to come down a bit in price. The Coby Kyros for example is a 7inch widescreen touchscreen LCD Android Tablet , 802.11g wireless, 4Gb flash memory, Micro SD card slot, USB and is available for about $148.
You can also check out the LePan TC970, this is an Android Tablet PC with 9.6″ multi-touch LCD display screen. This Tablet weighs 1.6 lbs and only 0.48 inches thin, is good for multitasking, browsing the web. Utilizing bundled Google technology, Le Pan TC970 gives one touch access to the Google Mobile Solutions like Google Search by voice, GoogleMap with Street view, YouTube, Picasa. Comes with 720p HD video and ARM-A8 Cortex 1Ghz processor, 512 Megabytes of DDR2 ram memory The LePan TC970is available for $198.
Another Android Tablet is the Superpad 10.2, it comes with WiFi, micro SD, Internal hard drive 2GB Flash with 2 slot for expansion, USB, MicroSD, Mini HDMI, build in stereo speakers and mono recording, 1.3 MP built in camera and 256 DDR2 ram memory.The Superpad 10.2 is available for $179.
But let’s be straight with you. When it comes to tablets, the Apple iPad 2 is still our recommendation for the most “well-rounded,” as you put it, tablet. It has by far the most apps available, and those apps are far more likely to take advantage of the iPad’s larger screen, and far more likely to work without errors, than the apps on Android tablets.
Why? Because there is one iPad. Everyone writing apps for it knows what it looks like, what operating system it’s running, how the hardware is structured, etc. On the Android side of the house, there are hundreds of smartphones and tablets. Differing hardware, differing versions of Android, and customizations of Android by the manufacturer. So you wind up with apps that run on one device but crash on another, or don’t take advantage of larger, high res screens.
It’s a mess. But it might be getting better. The Kindle Fire has sold so well that for the first time, there is a single device — same hardware, same Android version, same customized interface — with millions of potential customers for app developers. We’ve already seen apps coming out flagged as “designed for the Kindle Fire.” So you may find that, for this reason alone, the $199 Kindle Fire becomes a “well-rounded” Android tablet, even though Amazon has gone to great pains to lock down Android and make this a Kindle first and a tablet second.
But for today, right now, this Christmas, if you want the most “well-rounded” tablet, that’s an iPad.
For more information, tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast.
This Week’s Prizes for Our Listeners
Boingo: Two months of FREE Boingo WiFi Service available at hundreds of thousands of hotspots worldwide
Dane-Elec: Marvel Classic Heroes 4GB USB Drives – Spiderman, Iron Man & Wolverine
Solar Components: Several JOOS Orange Portable Solar Chargers – Designed to charge all personal electronic devices (cell phones, smart phones, MP3 players, GPS devices, portable game devices and more)