¶ Elevation Dock | Review

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I don't think anybody really likes using just the cable that comes in the box when they set their iPhone down at night to charge. I'm certainly no fan of just laying my phone down flat on my nightstand.

And since the iPhone's first day, Apple has known this, too. They included a charging dock in the box with the first iPhone. A year later, with the iPhone 3G, they realized people would probably drop a cool $30 on one, and they decided to instead sell it as an accessory.

When I had an iPhone 3G, I used Apple's dock on my nightstand. It sucked. It wasn't heavy enough in comparison to the iPhone, so the slightest bump would tip it over. And when you are fumbling for your phone in the early hours of the morning, you're probably going to bump it before you grasp it.

Not only that, but taking the iPhone out of the dock required both hands. Lifting the iPhone single-handedly would bring the dock along with it. That gets old fast.

So, with my iPhone 4, I have been in search of the perfect dock. I've tried many things, and for the past year, I had settled on the Bluelounge Refresh. That was okay, but still required both hands to disconnect the iPhone, and it was a little too large for my small nightstand.

And then, about six months ago, the Elevation Dock was announced on Kickstarter. Its creator, Casey Hopkins, had the same frustrations as me. So he set out to make a dock to vanquish those problems.

It took a long time, but the wait was definitely worth it. Yesterday, two Elevation Docks (one for me and one for my wife) arrived.

Elevation 5
Elevation 5

This dock is awesome. It works exactly as advertised. Here's a few more pictures.

Elevation 1
Elevation 1
Elevation 2
Elevation 2
Elevation 3
Elevation 3
Elevation 4
Elevation 4

There really isn't a whole lot more to say about the Elevation Dock. It is, after all, just a dock. It does one thing and it does it extremely well.

The machining and precision of craftsmanship on the Elevation Dock is outstanding. This is the dock you would have expected Apple to make.

Now, there has been one concern recently surrounding the rumors that Apple may change the dock connector on the next iPhone. Hopkins has assured should that happen, Elevation will make new circuit boards that users can purchase and install themselves (the board is held in by three little screws).

I can't recommend the Elevation Dock enough. It's beautiful. It does what a great dock should do. Elevation Lab is still fulfilling Kickstarter orders, but you can preorder one from their site.

With that, I'm going to leave you with their Kickstarter pitch video, which I think illustrates Hopkins' drive and passion well.

¶ Five Years of iPhone

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Five years ago today the original iPhone was released. I lived in South Dakota at the time, which, back in 2007, didn’t have an iota of AT&T service (now the entire state has it).

I do, however, remember the first time I saw an iPhone. It was July 16, 2007. Two days after I married Karen. My bride and I were sitting in the Denver airport, awaiting our connecting flight to Seattle. A young woman sat down next to me, on my left, and she pulled out an iPhone. I politely asked her a few questions about it, and after a couple moments she received a phone call.

A few days later Karen and I made our way to an Apple Store in Seattle, specifically because I wanted to play with an iPhone. The store was packed, and I had to wait a few moments to have a chance to try out one of the many display models.

When I picked up an iPhone for the first time, I was blown away. The fit and finish of that original iPhone was mesmerizing. I immediately went to Safari and looked at my website on it. I went into the iPod app and checked out Cover Flow, which was completely novel at the time (I honestly can’t stand it now). I watched a minute or two of an episode of LOST. And then…

…then I wondered if it would be okay to make a phone call. All the staff were quite busy. I decided to give it a whirl. I called my parents back in South Dakota. As I recall, they were a little surprised to hear my voice when the Caller ID said Apple was calling.

Then I called my friend Nathan, who — just days earlier — stood with me as a groomsman at my wedding. Nathan and I have always enjoyed discussing technology.

I left the Apple Store knowing I desperately wanted an iPhone. But, without any sort of service (not even roaming, as South Dakota only had CDMA towers at the time) in my state of residence, I knew I could be waiting a while.

I was satiated a couple months later with the release of the iPod touch. The iPod touch started out extremely sparse compared to the iPhone. This was, after all, before the App Store. It came with just a few built-in apps. That January, Apple gladly took $20 from me to add Mail, Notes, Weather, Stocks, and Maps.

In the Spring of 2008, we decided to move to Lincoln, NE. It turned out that Lincoln had AT&T. Fast-forward to July 11, 2008. Here I am, standing in line in Omaha at the Apple Store for the iPhone 3G. Karen was pregnant and due at pretty much any moment, so, I was a little nervous about being an hour away.

I got the iPhone 3G, and had it set up a while later. Four days later, my son was born. It is amazing how useful the iPhone was the day he was born. I timed contractions using the built-in stopwatch. And while I didn’t take the first photos of him with the iPhone, the first one most of our friends & family saw was taken with it. I had drafted an email a couple days earlier, leaving blanks for length, weight, time of birth, etc. I had also set up a MobileMe Gallery (because the iPhone couldn’t copy & paste yet) and inserted that link into the draft. So, I took a photo of Jonathan, uploaded it to the gallery, filled in the statistical information and sent it off. I did all that without needing to leave the side of my resting wife & son. Without needing to pull out a laptop.

I’ll never forget my son’s birth. And in those memories, the iPhone is there. It sounds silly (believe me, it does). But the iPhone played a very important role that day.

In this day and age, our phones are important to us. They are certainly the most personal computer we own. They are almost always within arm’s reach. We plug them in to charge right before going to sleep. We pick them up to check the news and weather and what not moments after awakening.

In one way, that can seem quite sad and pathetic. In another way, the barrier of technology in our lives has melted away. I can’t imagine feeling this close of a connection with the Motorola RAZR I owned five years ago. I can’t imagine not having my iPhone today.

I often think about the future. Much of that thinking is spawned by watching my son, who is about to turn 4 years old in a few weeks. He has Karen’s old iPod touch, with all the restrictions turned on, and loaded with kid games and Pixar movies. He knows what our Macs are, and he is interested in them a little. But not like his iPod. Not like our iPhones. And certainly not like my iPad.

My son has never known a day of his life without one of these devices present. Certain apps on his iPod helped him learn how to read and write earlier than many of his peers (you read that right, he can read a book on his own and has a pretty good grasp on early writing, and he isn’t even 4! Sorry about the Daddy Brag, but I’m proud of him!).

There isn’t a doubt in my mind that when he goes to college, he’ll take something that looks more like an iPad than a MacBook. Heck, typing on a screen may very well be the way he learns to type.

A lot has changed in the past five years of computing. I think you’d be hard pressed to argue that the iPhone isn’t the catalyst that inspired or outright started those changes.

Here’s to the next five years.

¶ Apple's New Podcasts App

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Me, last week, on the rumor of a standalone Podcasts app for iOS 6:

When Apple touted iOS 5 as being PC-free, one thing they forgot to include is being able to subscribe to podcasts on the iPhone and be able to check for and download new episodes.

Well, it turns out that iOS 5.1 is the release that makes iOS PC-free in this regard. Apple just released their standalone Podcasts app.

Here are the details from Apple:

Podcasts app is the easiest way to discover, subscribe to and play your favorite podcasts on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. Explore hundreds of thousands of free audio and video podcasts from the Podcasts Catalog, and play the most popular podcasts, organized for you by topic, with the all-new Top Stations feature.

Features:

  • Enjoy all of your audio and video podcasts in a single app
  • Explore hundreds of thousands of podcasts including shows in over 40 languages
  • Try the innovative new Top Stations feature to find new podcast series in a variety of topics, including arts, business, comedy, music, news, sports, and more.
  • Browse by Audio or Video podcasts, or see what’s most popular in Top Charts
  • Tap subscribe for your favorites and automatically receive new episodes for free as they become available
  • Stream episodes or download to listen while offline
  • Skip forward and back using simple playback controls
  • Turn on Sleep Timer to automatically stop playing a podcast while listening in bed
  • Share your favorite episodes with friends using Twitter, Messages and Mail
  • Optionally sync your favorite episodes from iTunes on your Mac or PC
  • Sync your episode playback for seamless transition between devices

This is all very good. The interface is very nice. When you are listening to an episode, tap or swipe up on its artwork to reveal an old reel-to-reel player and the sleep and sound speed settings. If you tap pause, you can see the mechanics of the reel-to-reel player stop.

Another nice touch with the reel-to-reel player is that as the episode progresses, the spool of tape on the left reel diminishes as the spool on the right increases. This also happens quickly as you scribble the timeline.

As for setting up Podcasts, it should pull in any episodes currently found in the podcasts section of Music.app. Also, it should continue to sync with iTunes, just as before. The added benefit of Podcasts, though, is that you can set you device to watch for new episodes and to download the latest. Annoyingly, though, you have to tap into each podcast and toggle each and every one of them to subscribe on the device.

And this is where I see some shortcomings from what I was hoping for. In that post from last week, I stated:

Hopefully Apple will make it easy to use iCloud to keep your subscription list, and allow a new Podcasts app to download new episodes in the background when plugged in to power and on Wi-Fi, in the same manner that it does iCloud backups and Newsstand updates.

Well, this just isn’t part of the app. At least, not yet. iCloud doesn’t keep your subscription list, and while the app will download new episodes, it won’t do so in the background. The app must be open to check for and download new episodes.

What iCloud does offer is syncing the playback position of episodes between devices — say, an iPhone and iPad. Unfortunately, it does this via whatever Apple ID is used for the iTunes Store, and not via the Apple ID set for iCloud.

This identity conundrum won’t affect everyone, as I am sure the vast majority of users have the iCloud ID and iTunes Store ID as one and the same. But for a family? Well, my wife and I each have separate iCloud IDs, yet we both use the same iTunes Store ID. If we were to both be subscribed to the same podcasts (thankfully, neither of us are) we would have a nightmare of playback syncing issues (there isn’t an option to not sync playback).

That aside, this is a very nice 1.0 app. I look forward to how it will improve. Hopefully iCloud will be emphasized more in a future release.

The important thing is Podcasts no longer solely rely on iTunes.

Podcasts is a universal app for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad, and requires iOS 5.1 or later. It’s free in the App Store.

While podcasts will exist in both Podcasts and Music apps in iOS 5, it looks certain that the podcasts function within Music will disappear in iOS 6. Use the next few months to transition to the new app.

Apple also has a little support section for Podcasts on its site.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that the only way to add a podcast in the interface is via the Podcast Catalog. However, some podcasts aren’t on iTunes. If you want to subscribe to a podcast that isn’t in iTunes, just enter the feed:// URL in Safari, and it will redirect to the Podcasts app and add it to your feed.

‘The App Store is for the Average User’

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There’s been some kerfuffel over TextExpander leaving the Mac App Store because of Apple’s recent enforcement of sandboxing, which doesn’t allow TextExpander to work within its scope.

Ben Brooks brings some sanity to the issue:

The App Store is for the average user. Apps that don’t fit in the App Store guidelines are simply not for the average user. That matters because the apps that don’t fit those guidelines can/will/could cause a massive support headache for not only Apple, but for the resident family geek. Users should be able to make the reasonable assumption that anything they download from the App Store cannot and will not mess up their computer in any way that uninstalling the app won’t fix their computer.

I am one such resident family geek. Let me tell you that I cannot wait to start flipping the dial on family members’ Macs to only allow Mac App Store only apps in Mountain Lion.

As for myself, I am a geek, and I know how OS X works. I have no fears nor quibbles with installing stuff from outside the App Store. That said, if an app is available in the App Store, I am likely to favor getting it from there instead of directly from the developer. Why? Because the App Store is easier. It keeps all my apps archived in the Purchases section. I don’t have to remember serial numbers.

Now, if an app is only available directly from the developer? That’s fine. I can handle it. But for the majority of people, the App Store is tailor made for them.

The New Nike+ Running App

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To go hand-in-hand with the new Nike+ website launched earlier this month, Nike has released Nike+ Running 4.0 (née Nike+ GPS). The refreshed app is now free and has a new interface that lines up with the website’s new features. NikeFuel is now shown cumulatively and on each run. It will also automatically tag the weather for your route, so all you need to report is how you felt and what kind of terrain you ran on.

Another nice new feature (also on the website) is the ability to tag which shoes you were wearing, as Nike+ will then keep track of how many miles you have put on them. When it is time for new shoes, you can retire your old ones from the settings.

Another little gem is the ability to delay the start of your run by 3, 6, or 9 seconds. This would be useful in a race, so you could tap the start button on your iPhone a few seconds before crossing the start line, so your arm isn’t blocking the tracker in your bib. iPhones will vibrate when the app has started tracking you, as well (iPods just get an audio notification).

This is a great update to my favorite fitness app.

Neat App: CheatSheet

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I love keyboard shortcuts. When learning a new app, the first thing I do is sift through its menus and absorb as many of the shortcuts listed as possible.

CheatSheet is a cool app on the Mac App Store that does one thing and does it very well. Once installed, it runs in the background (no dock or menu bar icon), and will pop up an overlay if you hold the Command key down for a moment. This overlay will show you all the keyboard shortcuts for an app at once. You can then either finish the shortcut or use your trackpad to select a command. Releasing the command key will dismiss the overlay.

You can also adjust the length of the delay for CheatSheet or quit the app from the gear icon on the overlay.

This is a great app for Mac keyboard ninjas learning a new app or for the fledgling keyboard padawan.

CheatSheet is free, so you really don’t have an excuse to not get it.