iPhone

Aug 26 2010

NetFlix instant streaming movies to your iPhone …awesomeness?

17200v1 max 450x4501 NetFlix instant streaming movies to your iPhone …awesomeness?The Mac web, or more specifically, the iPhone web is buzzing about Netflix for iPhone today. This is huge for NetFlix subscribers who find themselves in need of on-demand entertainment as it allows them to instantly watch movies and TV shows from the service’s vast selection of titles streamed from their servers directly to the iPhone’s screen.

Since I’m in Canada and still awaiting the arrival of the promised NetFlix service, I have to go by second-hand accounts. Mel Martin from TUAW says…

The new iPhone version has excellent image quality, supports fast forwarding and rewinding of the video stream, and like other incarnations of Netflix, allows you to pick up where you left off if you stop a movie and restart it. As Netflix members will appreciate, you can pause a movie you are watching on a Netflix device at home, and start the movie on the iPhone app and it will resume at the same place.

GeekSugar has a very helpful word of warning: make sure you use the app when you’re connected to wifi or expect a huge cell phone bill.

Like I said, I can’t try the app—I wish I could. Just based on the buzz and the strong potential for a service like this in the marketplace, I have to assume this is awesomeness.

By RickMacMerc • apps, iPhone, News • 0 • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Aug 23 2010

EpicWin!

This is new. I don’t mean that in a “it just came out” sort of way…though it basically did. I mean, I have tried a lot of productivity, task management, to do list and GTD1 applications in my time and this is the first time I’ve tried one that actually hides within the disguise of an RPG.2

EpicWin! is an iPhone app that allows you to assign yourself tasks, schedule repeating chores and set priorities like any other task management app, but it does so by rewarding task completion with XP3 and “loot.” Your tasks are categorized as feats of strength, stamina, intellect, social or spirit and you can set the priority by the amount of “Epicness” the task is worth upon completion.

You start EpicWin by creating your character: choose its race, its name and then you send it out on quests…like “Do the laundry”…”Mow the lawn”…or “Pick up the dry cleaning” As you complete those tasks your character levels up and acquires treasures which your friends on Twitter and Facebook can receive announcements about if you wish.

It’s a really imaginative idea and I hope the folks at SuperMono develop it further. I’d like to see them offer an online database for you to store your tasks and your progress like Remember The Milk and the ability to compete and share progress with other EpicWinners. Maybe they could allow multiple players to share a task together as an EpicWin epic quest!

The app sells for $2.99 US for the iPhone. What do you use to get things done?

No Flash? No problem—click here!»

  1. Getting Things Done EpicWin! [↩]
  2. Role Playing Game …get to know your acronyms!! [↩]
  3. Experience Points [↩]

By RickMacMerc • apps, Featured, gaming, iPhone, MacMerc.TV, Mini Video, News, productivity, productivity • 1 • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Aug 20 2010

Xtand and LogMeIn Ignition

I give credit to my buddy Brent Flink ( @indivisual ) for showing me LogMeIn and it’s super cool (and somewhat overpriced at $29.99 US) iPhone/iPad app LogMeIn Ignition.

LogMeIn is a web-based VNC service that allows you to install its free software on your Mac (or PC) and not only access, but control that computer from a supported web browser. Unfortunately, though Mobile Safari on the iPad and iPhone is one of those supported browsers, when you try to control the cursor within LogMeIn’s web-based VNC, you only end up controlling the view of the screen in the browser.

So, in order to control your Mac at home from your iPad in a coffee shop, you first need to have signed up for a FREE LogMeIn account, installed and activated the software on your Mac. Then you can share your Mac through LogMeIn. Now, when you launch LogMeIn Ignition on your iPad or iPhone, you can control your home computer from the road.

My favorite thing I’ve done with LogMeIn is use it to help me send files to clients that I couldn’t keep with me on my iPhone or iPad. While controlling my home Mac, I save the file to my Dropbox folder. This sets Dropbox to work making that file available to me online via the FREE Dropbox App on my iPad or iPhone. I still don’t actually have the file on those devices, but I can get a link to where it has been stored online by Dropbox that I can paste in an email on my iPhone and send it to my client. Problem solved.

No Flash? No problem—click here!»

My little joke at the start of the video below made use of a very cool iPhone stand called the Xtand.1 It’s a nice iMac-like stand that will hold the iPhone 3G, 3GS or 4. It sells for about $39.99 US2

As I mentioned at the end of the video, there is another service called TeamViewer that offers many of the same features of LogMeIn but offers FREE lite versions of its apps for iPhone and iPad …though its full-featured apps sell for $99.99 US for the iPhone version and $139.99 US for the iPad version. Suddenly, $29.99 US doesn’t seem so bad to me.

  1. I’m actually not sure if I’m supposed to pronounce it “EKS-tand” or “ztand”…clearly I chose “EKS-tand” [↩]
  2. the one I used in the video is available for $35.99 CDN if you can get to MacStation in Abbotsford before they sell it icon biggrin Xtand and LogMeIn Ignition [↩]

By RickMacMerc • apps, Featured, gadgets, iPad, iPhone, MacMerc.TV, Mini Video, News • 3 • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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