Pogo Stylus

**UPDATE** Apparently the new iPod touch ring-out system Apple will be trying in it’s retail stores this holiday season will also be using the Pogo Sketch Stylus for capturing signatures.

Let’s take a brief look back at the epic but short lived war that was started with the “Yuck” heard around the world spoken by Steve himself when he first proclaimed “Nobody wants a stylus.” I still remember the mass outcry of horror and disbelief from Palm and Windows Mobile users world over as they prepared to dig into their trenches. I, being a long time Mac addict, was amongst the first to enlist on Apple’s side and purchased the original iPhone on 7.11.09 (yes folks, this was pre-app store). The next 5 months consisted of allowing skeptics, wether I was on a plane, at a hockey game, or even in the movies, to sit there and play with my phone as if it were a toy. Quickly the tides turned and by the holiday season of ‘07, just less than a year since the iPhone was announced, the war was all but over. With every major phone manufacturer announcing or selling their own non-stylus driven touch screen phone the stylus appeared to be dead. And yet here I sit in disbelief as I hold a stylus made for the iPhone…
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Tony’s Tips ~ Refreshing your Network

Love it, hate it, or simply not care, iPhone users, at least here in the states, are pretty much bound to AT&T. I won’t speak for everyone, but for me, in the Valley of the Sun, this means dropped calls, loss of signal, and failed MMS messages, all while still showing full bars. Granted a lot of these have gotten better since the recent release of 3.1.2 , or the Chi-Town Update as I like to call it (If you’re from the midwest you understand).

Better doesn’t mean perfect though and I’ve personally gotten sick of doing hard resets (hold down the sleep/wake & the home button for 10 seconds) to get my calls to go through. Reseting Network Settings seemed to do the trick as well but isn’t really any quicker and then you loose all the wifi network information and passwords stored in your phone. What’s the answer? It’s simpler then you might think, Airplane Mode. As it turns out toggling on Airplane mode for 15 seconds and toggling it back off forces the phone to reset it’s cellular calibration and re-lock on to a near by tower. 15 seconds is still a minor annoyance, sure, but it really is minor when considering how much longer the alternatives can take.

*Here’s a bonus tip for this week also, this one goes out to all of the parents with youngsters running around out there. As the world changes and iPhone games start being developed for younger and younger children, kids are going to want to play with Mommy and Daddy’s phone more and more. An obvious concern here are the accidental phone calls a child might make to China while trying to play with Curious George. An easy solution, turn on that Airplane mode again. Sure it won’t stop the most malicious of kids out there trying to make calls but for the innocent ones it poses as an extra level of protection that will work the majority of the time.
**P.S. Wifi can still be turned back on without cellular service being active, important in case the games are online based or if you still need to hear incoming e-mail.

Tony’s Tips ~ Syncing with Multiple Computers

Ever wanted to sync your iPhone with more then one computer to merge something like contacts or pictures and get a message like this (see photo above)? If you’re someone like myself with more than 3,000 songs on your phone this message is more than concerning. In a day and age like this where so many people use multiple computers on a regular basis how could Apple possibly limit your syncing to merely one machine? I myself have all of my music saved on my Mac Mini at home, all of my photos on my MacBook Pro and my apps saved on a work computer, without constantly copying them all to one machine how can I get all of this content on a single iPhone?

As it turns out Apple and iTunes is more prepared for this than it appears, they just don’t advertise or explain it very well to anyone. An iPhone isn’t tied to just one machine for syncing, it’s simply tied to one machine for syncing each category. In other words you could have your music sync from one machine, photos from another, movies from a third machine, etc. for each separate tab in the iTunes menu. So if you click the “Sync Movies” check box and it warns you it will erase all Movies on your phone you can proceed without fear of losing all of your music as long as the music check box is not marked as well.

Go forth my friends and buy as many computers as you can afford, iPhone syncing can no longer hold you back from your dream of having an AT&T-like command center in your basement.

Tony’s Tip – 3.1 Remote Passcode

With all of the announcements and new iPods last week, 3.1 really seemed to slip through the cracks. Sure Steve made a special point to show off the new app store genius, which really is a cool feature, and of course the new organization in iTunes is pretty sweet but it also added a cool little security feature for MobilMe users.

Spawned from the days of the .Mac service that was really built for a niche market, MobileMe has quickly and quietly developed into a godsend in the iPhone world. With features like the automatic contact syncing, the Find My Phone, and Remote Wipe features, there was already plenty of reason to be looking in this direction. However, until now there was still a small security concern lurking. Find My Phone gave you the ability to locate your phone if you left it somewhere and the Remote wipe would clear it off if it was stolen, but what about if you’re not sure which has happened. Maybe it was stolen but maybe you just left it at the bar. If you wipe it then you can’t locate it any longer, but if you don’t then someone could be looking through all those pictures you took last week in Vegas. BAM, Apple brings you Remote Lock. Via the MobileMe web page you can set a pass code lock that instantly kicks the phone out of any app it’s running and locks it up nice and tight. Someone could still shut the phone off at this point but at the very least you know they aren’t getting to your information. All and all, this is a great little feature that really completes the security circle Apple is trying to build for it’s iPhone users. Here is the list of other features 3.1 add as well.

WildCharger…Pesky Cables Be Gone!

“Lazy Bones”…I’m sure all of our mothers have called us that at one point or another but did you know that this was the name of the first ever TV remote control? Seriously, it was designed by Zenith and released to the world in the early 1950’s as the wave of the future. By today’s standards you probably wouldn’t even recognize it as a remote, with only a few buttons and a long pesky cable that stretched across the room it was less than practical. This was eventually remedied though with the advent of the alkaline battery which made it’s way into all sorts of gadgets like remotes, electric razors, etc. However this led us to a new problem, batteries die and then need to be replaced. Enter the rechargeable battery! But wait now we’re right back to having cables to charge everything, we just can’t seem to get rid of these darn things…until now. Meet WildCharge an innovative company from Boulder, CO that brings us a step closer to eliminating all of those wires.

This is a company that’s been around for a little while with their WildCharger Pad but just recently came out with a skin for the iPhone and iPod Touch. It is easily used by taking any device that is in a WildCharge Skin or has an adapter attached to it and placing it on the charging pad and almost magically the device will begin its normal charging cycle. The first time I did it I literally giggled, extremely cool stuff here, very Jetsons like.

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