Gear Bits

Siri Outage Reveals Not Success or Failure ... But Loneliness

Gear Bits

Siri Outage Reveals Not Success or Failure … But Loneliness

Late last week one of the big features of the recently released iPhone 4S – Siri – suffered an outage, which was widely reported. Beyond that, there were those who took the outage to indicate either massive success … or massive failure on the part of Apple and the service. But I see something different … loneliness. If you look back to the very first few things people tested on the iPhone 4S with Siri, it was telling it they loved it. You can see it featured in this Gizmodo article from right after the launch. And here are just…

Jawbone UP First Impressions

Gear Bits

Jawbone UP First Impressions

Although it is only just being released this morning, I was able to pick up one of Jawbone’s new UP wrist bands yesterday (Jawbone UP). It truly is the height of “geek chic”, and whether or not it will be a passing fad waits to be seen. I wanted to share a few initial impressions of it but first let’s look at what it does and does not do. The UP is like a super-duper pedometer. It tracks your steps and can “challenge” you to do more. Or, if you set it at “X steps planned today”, it will tell you…

Twelve South PlugBug QuickLook

Gear Bits

Twelve South PlugBug QuickLook

We brought word of Twelve South‘s new PlugBug Mac/iPad accessory the other day. Within seconds of learning about the new product Judie and I had both ordered one. It is a great traveling companion if you have a Mac and an iPad or iPhone, so it seemed like a no-brainer. It is! Mine just came and, once again, I’m impressed with what Twelve South has done. Here’s a quick video look at the PlugBug. You can order yours for here on the company site for $34.99.

Amazon's Android Appstore — Same Legendary Amazon Service

Gear Bits

Amazon’s Android Appstore — Same Legendary Amazon Service

I may have moved on to an iPhone, but I still have a hacked NOOKcolor running Android! Plus I have two years’ worth of Android apps between Google’s Marketplace and, more recently, Amazon’s Appstore. While it wasn’t an everyday ritual, I did try to grab Amazon’s free apps of the day if they looked halfway decent, figuring I might want to use them in the future. Now, I’m used to Amazon’s Kindle service, where they send me a nice email if a book is updated by the publisher with instructions on how to update it. But I’ve paid for those…

iCloud Workflow Update Thanks to the iOS App Elements

Gear Bits

iCloud Workflow Update Thanks to the iOS App Elements

The other day I wrote a post talking about the fact that, thanks to, Siri and iCloud, the Notes application that ships on all iOS devices has suddenly become a full-fledged productivity tool. Thanks to Siri, I’m now able to write everything I need to write on my iPhone by voice and then, thanks to iCloud, the exact same text is immediately available onto my iPad in its Notes app or on my Mac in the Mail.app program. In other words, I’m able to write by voice on the go and then format and correct the text on a larger,…

Looking for a Digital Movie Tonight? Check Out 'CanIStream.It'!

Gear Bits

Looking for a Digital Movie Tonight? Check Out ‘CanIStream.It’!

Have you ever wanted to watch a movie or TV show only to be thwarted by the seemingly random method used to decide whether or not you can watch certain things on the various services? I know my family has – and both Doug and I have ranted about it in the past. In fact, this past weekend while I was out of town overnight and my younger son was at a school dance, my wife and older son wanted to watch Paranormal Activity 2, only to be disappointed when it was unavailable on our Roku (it is now available)…

PowerBags to the Rescue

Gear Bits

PowerBags to the Rescue

Yesterday we reviewed the PowerBag Messenger, a messenger bag that carries a 6000mAh battery and has internal cabling that makes charging an iOS device, or one that has a mini or microUSB connection simple. Today I got home and shot a video of the backpack version of the PowerBag for the second part in the review. Little did I know how handy both bags would be just hours later. You see, the October Surprise dumped a fair bit of snow on the ground today. That, combined with the fact that the trees still had leaves on them that caught more…

Give Your Walking Dead Halloween Costume a Truly Authentic Look

Gear Bits

Give Your Walking Dead Halloween Costume a Truly Authentic Look

Are you dressing up as your favorite zombie-killing refugee from the show Walking Dead this Halloween? If so you really owe it to yourself to make your outfit as authentic as possible. This Gerber Gator Machete Pro will only run you $53. Add a little fake blood and you are good to go. In the process you will ensure that NO ONE will even think about messing with your candy. Even better, you won’t just win the best costume contest but you will also be ready for the coming zombie invasion in the process. via Werd

UGG Replacement Sheepskin Insoles

Gear Bits

Give Your Old UGGs New Life with a Set of UGG Replacement Sheepskin Insoles

Let’s just go ahead and get it out of the way: UGGs are ugly. They make your feet look huge, and they are sloppy. I’ve been told that there is nothing worse than seeing a woman wearing a pair of UGGs with a skirt or a pair of shorts; Kev grew up in the San Diego area, and he has issues with those combos, evidently. So there are plenty of reasons to dislike them, but I think the biggest reason boils down to the fact that they are ugly.

TeleNav GPS Plus Gets Tests on a Quick Roadtrip

Gear Bits

TeleNav GPS Plus Gets Tests on a Quick Roadtrip

I have to make a quick trip up to Boston to see a few people. I was hoping to take the train but the schedule just doesn’t work. The same was true for flights. As a result, I’ll be driving to Boston shortly and then, later tonight, making my way back home. The trip is long enough on its own without my taking any wrong turns so I want/need a good GPS program. I looked at all my options and decided to go with TeleNav’s offering. The app now comes with voice-guidance and, thanks to competition in the GPS app…

T-Mobile Working Hard (At Apple Stores) To Fight Lack of iPhone

Gear Bits

T-Mobile Working Hard (At Apple Stores) To Fight Lack of iPhone

Poor T-Mobile. They are now the only major mobile carrier in the US not carrying the iPhone. With the release of the iPhone 4S, now AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint have the iPhone 4 and 4S. Which leaves T-Mobile as the odd man out. But T-Mobile is trying to fight back. First, they issued a press release stating that they would love to carry the iPhone, but it is up to Apple. In the same press release, they explain reasons they feel their network is superior. Don’t get me wrong – I really love T-Mobile, as does Francis. Their “4G” network…

iOS 5 Tip: Am I Sending an iMessage or SMS (Text) Message?

Gear Bits

iOS 5 Tip: Am I Sending an iMessage or SMS (Text) Message?

There are several new features in Apple’s iOS 5. One of my favorites is the updated Messages application. Previously, Messages only allowed sending of SMS and MMS messages. As part of iOS 5, though, Messages can now send SMS and Text messages to phone numbers (as it always could), but can also send iMessages over a network connection, bypassing your text message plan. How do you tell which one you’re using? Well, turns out Apple made it easy to tell when you are sending each message type, visually. They use two visual cues: color and the message in the input…

Siri's Predecessor, and "Good Friend"

Gear Bits

Siri’s Predecessor, and “Good Friend”

I think it’s safe to say that most iPhone 4S users have toyed around with Siri’s capabilities and limits. We’re all telling her that we love her, asking her absurdly subjective questions, and the developers anticipated all of it. While I was making a fool of myself with Siri last night (did you know that she can’t –or just chooses not to– hear certain four letter swear words?) I found myself uttering a mysterious question that rose up from some murky place in my id: “Do you know Eliza?” What? Where did that come from? I then remembered the world’s…

AT&T Lets Us Down Again

Gear Bits

AT&T Lets Us Down Again

Ah, AT&T. So, I’m sitting here staring at my shiny new iPhone 4S. It’s unusable right now, thanks to AT&T’s lack of preparedness. They’ve had several years to figure out how to handle the spike in the load on their servers that accompanies the launch of a new iPhone model. Yet they still manage to hack up a hairball when it comes time to process orders and activate phones. Apparently, I’m not the only one, either. Several blogs are reporting AT&T customers are experiencing widespread problems with activations. When AT&T carried the iPhone exclusively, I could at least understand that…

Ask Siri anything...as long as you're in the US

Gear Bits, News

Ask Siri anything…as long as you’re in the US

Having trekked down to the Apple Store this morning, I had no trouble picking up my brand new white 64GB 4S. The feature I was most interested in trying was Siri, the “Personal Assistant” included with every new 4S, but unfortunately between the US and the rest of the world, everything is not equal. Asking Siri to find the closest petrol station greeted me with this unexpected rebuff: Having had a look through the Apple Australia website and rewatched the Siri section of the keynote (link), I can’t find anywhere that it says that business listings are not available outside…

Lining Up for the iPhone 4S, Australian Style!

Gear Bits

Lining Up for the iPhone 4S, Australian Style!

Rather than lie in bed lazily this morning (or tomorrow morning, for those of us in the United States), Mitchell has been waiting patiently in line at a local Apple Store along with a crowd of other hopeful iPhone 4S owners. The irony of photographing the Apple launch on the EVO 3D. I should have brought the Galaxy S II! 😛 In an email with the subject line, “I’m a nerd,” Mitchell let me know how his morning was going. Well of course you’re a nerd, Mitchell! But there’s no shame in it, and you’re in good company! After all, I’m the…

iCloud Quick-Tip- Get Your Contacts Into iCloud

Gear Bits

iCloud Quick-Tip- Get Your Contacts Into iCloud

iOS 5.0 and iCloud go live later today. With them come a host of opportunities to have all of your Macs and iDevices works together flawlessly. (Or at least we hope flawlessly since the initial MobileMe rollout was a disaster.) One issue that came up for me was the desire to get away from using Gmail as my address book and move all my contacts to iCloud. The reason for this is rather simple — I want one set of address book data and I cannot stand the anemic way Google handles things in this regard. There are numerous way…

After Months of iOS 5.0 Beta, Newsstand Finally Works

eBooks, Gear Bits, News

After Months of iOS 5.0 Beta, Newsstand Finally Works

Since the very first beta of iOS 5.0, there has been a useless icon that simply sat there. Yes, the Newsstand icon was there … and there was absolutely nothing you could do with it. You could not delete it because it is an iOS app. You could not shove it into a folder because… Well, because you couldn’t. And there were no magazines or newspapers to populate it. Such is the reality of using Beta software. Well, just now that changed… An update to Wired magazine moved my subscription into Newsstand. Look, I love Zinio, but having all my magazines…

It's All in the Timing

Gear Bits

It’s All in the Timing

This month’s MacLife magazine arrived today. It is the only “dead tree” edition mag I still get, but only because I cannot stand their browser-based eMag version. Elana immediately noted the cover story that reads “Apple First Aid”. I noticed the box in the upper left hand corner… Obviously the blurb is referring to Jobs stepping down as Apple CEO but the timing, and the way it now reads is… disturbing. And it is a question many are asking today. Yes, sometimes it is all in the timing.