It’s been an exciting week of product announcements from Amazon and Apple. Decide who does a better Steve Jobs impersonation.
Amazon Kindle Press Conference – September 28, 2011, New York, NY
Apple Special Event – October 4, 2011, Cupertino, CA
iPhone Tracker is a new desktop application that allows people to see where their iPhone has logged it’s travels. My iPhone has kept it’s entire travel history, going back to June 2010 when I got my iPhone 4. iPhone Tracker uses the data from your iPhone backups in iTunes.
It’s a little buggy, but still an interesting way to see your travels.
iPhone Tracker is can be downloaded for Mac and Windows.
It appears that the iPhones (like other phones) keep this data to provide GPS applications with your last location and make it easier to quickly attain your current location. If you want to protect your iTunes backup from divulging this information, go to your iPhone Summary page in iTunes and check off Encrypt iPhone backup.
While Apple has technically enabled the printer function on iPhones, iPads, and iPod Touches, printing only works currently on 18 specific models of HP printers.
AirPrint Activator
To enable printing to any printer attached to your Mac, use the free AirPrint Activator (formerly AirPrint Hactivator).
It’s a simple program. I’ve been using a beta of version 2 without problems.
PDF Printing
You can print to a PDF by downloading and installing the CUPS-PDF Installer. Share that printer for it to show up on your AirPrint Activator list.
Automator to Move the PDF / Dropbox
The CUPS-PDF Installer prints to your folder:
/Users/Shared/CUPS-PDF/[your account]
or, for iOS devices, to:
/Users/Shared/CUPS-PDF/ANONYMOUS
Those aren’t easy places to find your PDF, so we’ll automatically move those files when they arrive.
Open Automator (Applications – Automator), then select the “Folder Action” template. This will allow you to choose the CUPS-PDF folder where your printed files go by default. Then drag over the library action “Move Finder Items” and choose where you want the file moved to. You might want to move the file to your desktop. I chose to move the files to a Dropbox sub-folder called CUPS Print Jobs, automatically backing them up and making them accessible to me through the Dropbox app or GoodReader app on my iPhone and iPad.
I set up this Automator action for both my CUPS folders that are printed to, the folder from my user account (used when printing to CUPS-PDF from my Mac) and the ANONYMOUS folder (used when printing to CUPS-PDF from iOS devices).
In order to allow Automator to move files from the ANONYMOUS folder, you need to go to it in the finder (/Users/Shared/CUPS-PDF/ANONYMOUS), CTRL-click on it, select Get Info and add yourself to the permissions for that folder.
Other Options
If these instructions are too much for you and you have $19.95 burning a hole in your pocket, you can do the same thing with Printopia 2.
These features also should be appearing in updates from Apple at some point in the future.
I recently needed to do some basic editing of Word documents from the iPad. Looking at the app store, I found Pages ($9.99) by Apple, Documents To Go Premium – Office Suite ($14.99), and QuickOffice Connect Mobile Suite for iPad ($14.99) to be the most popular applications for this. I’ll refer to thees as just Pages, Documents To Go, and QuickOffice.
After using these apps, I found file transfers and Word compatibility to be the two major issues.
1) How to Move Files
The Apple iPad is not a traditional computer. It does not have a file system that is designed to be universally accessed. Therefore applications need to be creative.
I wanted to be able to edit and save documents kept on Dropbox, the popular cloud file storage service. This factor ruled out Pages. When used in conjunction with an application like GoodReader or Air Sharing, Pages can import files from Dropbox. The problem comes when you want to save those files you edited in Pages back to Dropbox. It’s a mess. Sure, you can save the Pages file locally as a Word file, sync with iTunes, bring the file to your desktop, then load it into Dropbox. But what kind of workflow is that?
Both Documents To Go and QuickOffice will import and save directly to Dropbox and other services.
There are other ways to move documents to and from your computer. Documents To Go has a program that you can install on Windows or Mac. I prefer Quickoffice‘s solution though. Quickoffice lists an IP address, e.g. 192.168.1.3:4242, which you can type into the web browser of any computer on your local network. From there, you can download and upload files. It’s slick.
2) Compatibility with Word
In general, I found Pages to be the strongest stand alone word processor, both in terms of editing and Word compatibility. Unfortunately, the lack of a good file transfer workflow disqualified it for me.
Both Quickoffice and Documents To Go handled most documents well enough to be useful. Neither did well with multiple columns. Quickoffice appeared to more consistently show page breaks. Documents To Go was slightly better at drawing tables on the examples we gave it.
There were a lot of quirks but both apps worked. And if you made some changes to the document, it wouldn’t screw up the existing formatting. So even if not everything looked right on the iPad, it looked correct when loaded back into Word.
Other Considerations
In favor of Documents To Go:
In favor of Quickoffice:
Both apps can edit Excel files. They are also compatible with a bluetooth wireless keyboard.
Conclusion
The saying goes that the iPad is a great media consumption device, but not the ideal media creation tool. I agree, at least for now. If you need to do serious word processing, photo manipulation, etc, you’re better off with a traditional computer due to it’s full fledged operating system (with printing and file management) and more capable applications. I suspect that in a year we’ll have vastly more capable iOS for iPad. Perhaps there will even be Office apps from Microsoft.
I can’t proclaim a winner between Documents To Go and Quickoffice. They are both regularly updated with new features. If you plan on editing MS Office files a lot, you might want both. I’m going to continue switching between the two since I can’t decide which is better. If you have any opinions on these apps or others to write documents on the iPad, let me know.
The MicroCell is an interesting product. Some believe it is a product filling holes in a carrier’s network that shouldn’t exist. No carrier has blanket coverage and often even when there is coverage, it is worse indoors so it is nice that products like this do exist. For $150, you can pick up an AT&T MicroCell from any AT&T store. This is a cheaper option than some alternatives and worth consideration if you have little coverage at home or work.
Setup
Account setup is rather simple and done through a website. You provide your address and phone numbers and that’s it. You are limited to 10 phone numbers that can work through a MicroCell. The good news is that it is locked down by phone numbers so your neighbor can’t use it. Your address info is verified by GPS in the MicroCell during startup. Unfortunately, this means the device needs to be near a window so it can get a GPS signal. This is the oddest thing about it but apparently a requirement by the FCC. If the GPS light does not come on, you need to move it closer to a window. In some cases, you may need to try various windows at your house until you finally are able to get GPS.
Once you get GPS and are connected to your Internet, you can move the device as long as it doesn’t lose power. This might be easy if are just relocating it in the same room. If you are moving to an area with no windows, you’ll need a battery backup solution. A cheap good option is the Tripp Lite Compact UPS
Performance
AT&T claims a 40 ft range. This is pretty decent and works out to an area of about 5,000 square feet, even more if you have 2 floors. You’ll drop about 1 bar of coverage per major obstacle (like a wall) so to cover a whole house, you’ll want to put the MicroCell in the most central location. Unfortunately, central often means no windows, hence the need for the UPS approach.
Even if you’ve got 5 bars and are sitting right next to the MicroCell, your call quality might be awful if your Internet isn’t good. This is often the cause of any VoIP (voice over Internet protocol) issues and everyone’s assumption that their Internet is good. To test the VoIP quality of your Internet, visit this VoIP test site. If you don’t do well on those tests, you shouldn’t consider any VoIP products.
Assuming you’ve got good Internet and good bars, the MicroCell performance is very good. You’ll know you’re connected because your phone will say something like AT&T M-Cell instead of just AT&T. If you’re far from the MicroCell or have many walls between it and you, your performance may suffer so be sure to place it near where you expect to make most calls. If you’re heavily using your Internet, streaming a video for example, your call quality may suffer if you don’t have your router setup properly.
Router Optimization
The MicroCell can go between your router and DSL/Cable modem but additional routers is rarely a good thing. We recommend you hook the MicroCell up to your router so it can plug in anywhere on your network. We don’t recommend the use of a wireless bridge as wireless can be too sporadic for VoIP. To optimize MicroCell performance, it should be given high priority in your router’s QoS (Quality of Service). The MicroCell MAC address is on the bottom of the device.
Alternative
Before the MicroCell, the best alternative was the zBoost YX-510 Cell Phone Booster
Conclusion
If you’ve got poor Internet but some outside signal, the cell phone booster is your best bet. If you’ve got good enough Internet, the MicroCell is a cheaper and superior option. You may not like having to pay for such a device but it is a one time fee that should simply make your AT&T phones work at home.
