Thursday, July 24, 2008
It takes four actions to enable Bluetooth on the new iPhone.
- Click “Settings”.
- Click “General”.
- Click “Bluetooth”.
- Click on/off slider.
Leaving Bluetooth enabled all the time drains the battery much too quickly, so it makes sense to only enable it when you are using it, and to disable it when you are finished. (The same could be said of 3G network access.) Hopefully in the next release of the software they’ll make it easier to flip these two settings. I mean, I know it’s not world hunger or anything, but four clicks is at least two too many.
Thursday, March 8, 2007
The first thing I did after crossing the marathon finish line was call my girlfriend so she could come get me. It was the last call I would make with my trusty RAZR. My hands were slick with sweat and the phone was coated with the salt and grime that had evaporated from my body during the 26.2 mile run. When it smashed to the ground it shattered as if it had been dipped in liquid nitrogen. The stomping feet of dozens of runners crushed what was left of it into the asphalt. I would have laughed if I’d had the strength. Instead I just sort of stared at it and made a sort of grunted smirk.
On Monday morning I went to the Cingular store near my office and bought a new RAZR. I got the same model for $100 (with a $50 mail-in rebate). It took me a few minutes of trudging through the Motorola site, but eventually I found the instructions to pair my Bluetooth headset to the phone.
Friday, February 16, 2007
My mom and dad both love taking photos with their cell phones and then texting them to me. As much as I enjoy receiving them, I hate the way they take for-freaking-ever to display on my phone. I also hate having photos on my cell phone. (You can’t do anything with them there!) Today I had an idea. “I wonder if you can send camera photos via email instead of only via SMS?” I gave it a shot and it works! I don’t know about all carriers, but if you have Cingular, you can text a cell phone photo to an email address instead of to someone else’s cell phone. That is extra cool.
Click “Store”, then “Send in Message”. Instead of selecting a name from your address book, just enter an email address. It’s that simple. Now I can save all these pictures of my dad golfing and my mom’s cats on my computer. I can Photoshop them and crop them and send them to my friends and archive them and treat them just like … well … real digital photos. All I have to do is convince them to do this …
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