Tuesday Tech Talk #72

Greetings everyone and welcome to another edition of Tuesday Tech Talk. Quite a bit of news this week I want to share so lets get right into it!

I have an iPhone 4!

Out of the blue, I upgraded to an iPhone 4. Thanks to a week long promotion going on at Radio Shack, I was able to trade in my iPhone 3GS for a $125 credit toward an iPhone 4 which was also sold for $50 off the regular price. What this meant was I was able to walk out of the store with a brand new 32GB iPhone 4 for $125 instead of the regular $300 price, a $175 savings! But it gets even better, my wife who has had a flip phone for a few years now, purchased an 8GB 3GS for $49. Now the catch is obviously you have to be eligible for an upgrade with AT&T and you agree to a new 2 year contract.

So, how is the iPhone 4? It is great! I can FaceTime now with it, take HDR photos, and the Retina display is awesome! You really have to see an iPhone 4 in person to grasp just how rich the display is. A good test is to visit the New York Times website and close in on the “New York Times” banner and the detail of the font is spectacular! My wife really likes her first iPhone and loves that her Yahoo email comes right to her email now instead of having to login on the Yahoo website. It has been a bit of a learning curve for her, but she likes it a lot! Here is an HDR photo I took last night at Oby’s of our bread pudding dessert.



Yum!! So, if you are eligible for an upgrade from AT&T, you might want to check in at your local Radio Shack before Saturday.

Facebook Profile Facelift

So I watched 60 Minutes on Sunday night which I never do but Mark Zuckerberg was interviewed by Lesley Stahl and they hinted something new Facebook was working on, would be shown on 60 Minutes. Sure enough, they have given a whole new look to the Facebook profile page. To give you an idea, here is what mine looks like now.





So basically you enter in your key information and it spells out a nice summary of who you are. It also offers an expanded family tree for connections. Now in addition to spouse, brother, sister, mom and dad connections, it also offers uncle, aunt, cousins, niece and nephews. Interesting enough in-laws is still not an option so if you have a brother-in-law for example and want to add the family connection, you will just have to label them as a brother for now. So check it out, I happen to like it but your mileage may vary.

Google offers e-Books

Also announced yesterday, Google is now an e-book seller and offering reader apps for iOS and Android devices. Stay tuned for this Friday’s Googling Friday where I talk a lot more about the pros and cons of Google’s e-book reader app.

Mac App Store to launch Monday?

Apple may be preparing to launch their Mac App Store as early as this coming Monday. Apple did state during the OS X 10.7 Lion preview that they would launch a beta version of the Mac App Store within 90 days so this seems to fit into that timeline. If it does then we will have something to discuss here next week.

AirPlay coming to Safari and Third-party apps in 2011

Once again Steve Jobs fired off an email reply from his iPhone to someone that asked about AirPlay limitations on video from iOS devices to AppleTV. Jobs states that Apple hopes to add video features to third-party apps and Safari. This is great news for folks that use Netflix and Hulu Plus on their iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad as they can then stream video to the AppleTV.

This Week’s iOS app Reviews

iMove ($4.99) - IF you have an iPhone 4 then you really should get this app. What it does is allow you to edit video shot on your iPhone 4, on your iPhone 4. I was able to put together a video overview of the Google Books reader app using my iPhone 4 and iMovie. You can find the video here!

Loopt (FREE) - Yes, another location based social networking app. I try them all folks and what I like about this one is it integrates with Facebook’s Places. So you tie your Facebook account into Loopt and whenever you check into a location using the Facebook app, Loopt will also show you at such place. You can also connect your Twitter account to Loopt as well.

Words with Friends (FREE) - Ok so there is also an iPad version as well. They also offer a paid version without advertising. Basically Words with Friends is Scrabble that you can play with friends and family. You will have to setup a username, but it is fairly easy to setup a game quickly with a friend. I have learned words I didn’t know existed and you can also chat with each other as well. It is a lot of fun.

Google Books (FREE) - As I mentioned earlier, Google is offering their own e-book reader app now (iPad version). The look and feel is similar to that of the Apple iBooks and Amazon Kindle app. On Friday, I will have more about it.

Well, that is going to do it for this edition of Tuesday Tech Talk. See you all next week for another fixin’!