[mk]

I’ve been a huge fan of AOL Radio for over 2 years now. The quality of the more than 200 radio stations are outstanding, far surpassing anything on iTunes radio stations. Best of all, AOL Radio has maintained an agreement with XM Radio that allowed you to listen to 20 of XM’s top stations. Unfortunately the agreement ends on April 30, 2008. Now, if you want to continue listening to XM stations you have to sign up with them for the low cost of $2.99 per month. I don’t find this price to be disagreeable but it definitely doesn’t beat the current price of free.

Read the post by AOL Radio

Hmmmm…. I’ll get on that soon. I blame you Twitter!

[mk]

Recently, I had my iPhone crashing a lot when opening Google Maps. If I was playing music at the same time, that was a sure crash. Let me define crash as the program closing and going back to the home screen. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, iPhones crash too. But, that being said, there’s a relatively quick solution.

It turns out I hadn’t turned off / rebooted my phone since I got it. So after a quick reboot, everything returned to stable and working. I assume this is probably a memory allocation problem which hopefully they work out in future software updates.

To reboot your iPhone:

Press and hold the power button and the home button at the same time. If your phone is not locked up–which mine hasn’t yet–it will prompt you to turn off the phone by sliding the “turn off” bar to the right.

Hope this helps. Let’s be patient while they work all of the bugs out. This is a gen 1 device.

My personal email is setup through Google Domains. So, in a sense I’m using Gmail, but my email address lacks the ‘@gmail.com’ extension. Currently, if you try to add Gmail as an email account to the iPhone, it defaults with the ‘@gmail.com’.

Is there anyway to setup the iPhone for Google Domains without using Gmail’s POP forward feature?

As I blogged about earlier the iPhone purchase experience was outstanding. Activation, however, has been a lamentable, deplorable, all around painstaking waiting game…. A little dramatic, I know.

I completed the new phone sign-up at ~7pm on Friday the 29th. Since I was transferring my number over, I was told this could take up to 20 minutes. Unfortunately, I received an email stating the my activation “required more time to complete” and that it could take up to 24 hours.

So, that was mildly annoying, but I guess I can understand since it’s the first weekend and debut of the device; however, about 12 hours into my activation my previous cellphone (Treo 700w) from Verizon stopped working. Making a call to my cell stated the number was no longer in service. From what I’ve read, the switch of the number from the old device to the new takes place once the activation takes place. AT&T customer service reps confirmed this was supposed to be the case as well.

The customer service reps have been nothing but kind, responsive, and helpful, but it has been 36+ hours since I began the process and still no iPhone…and no phone at all for that matter as my old service with Verizon is now disconnected.

Grrrr…

I was one of many who showed up early to get in line, waiting for the iPhone. The location my friend and I chose was Lenox Square Mall in Atlanta, Ga. I showed up at ~10:30 AM and ended up being about 80th in line. All in all, the pre-launch waiting was actually very enjoyable. Apple had two free, open wireless access points, so everyone waiting in line had WiFi. Most people in line thought ahead and brought chairs with them… I guess I wasn’t one of them.

Throughout the day we were provided with different perks–once, Red Bull girls walking around and giving out free Red Bulls, another time, Luna bars. Towards 4 o’clock, after the Apple store had closed down for its 2pm - 6pm gear-up, Apple employees roamed the lines giving out free waters and answering any questions people had. Let me rephrase and say, they were answering any questions they were allowed to answer…which wasn’t much.

Then comes the brilliance: at 6pm rather than have everyone push and shove their way into the store, they had Apple employees walking down the lines informing line-goers that they would be taking in small groups of people at a time into the store, and would constantly keep us up-to-date with the quantities on hand.

What did all of this end up meaning? Apple was able to put an enormous amount of people through our line in a very short amount of time. Even being 80th in line, I was fully checked out, iPhone/accessories in hand within 45 minutes of the launch. But, this wasn’t just a streamlined assembly line–Apple employees were stationed at the entrance of the store, cheering for groups as they entered. Employees and copious amounts of iPhones were on-hand for demos.

Perhaps one of the most amazing aspects of the entire process was the amount of people Apple was able to check out. For those who’ve been to the Apple stores, they’ve seen the PDA/scanner/mobile checkout stations which employees use to process people’s items. Upon checking out with my new iPhone, I proceeded over to the accessories area to check out what they had to offer. There ended up being an employee standing there who was able to quickly answer and identify the accessory I was requesting. Then, as I started to turn away, he asked if I wanted to check out…proceeding to pull out a checkout PDA. With a bag holder on his waist, he was able to process my credit card, bag my accessories, all in the matter of 2 minutes. Brilliant!

So, as I close, I must once again compliment the thought that went behind putting together such a smooth, efficient and thoroughly enjoyable experience. Also, kudos to the employees for their enthusiasm and knowlegable help/advice.

Now on to activation!

So, as I stated in my prior post, there exists a need for iPhone users to be able to find and launch web apps that are written for the phone; however, even the use of bookmarks could make saving and launching new apps a very cumbersome process.

Enters LaunchPad.

So here it is–the product of many-a-late night recently. Basically, LaunchPad is an app manager for iPhone web apps. It makes launching and discovering new apps simple and fun.

Please note: Currently, this application has NO backend/database functionality. It will soon. I’ve spent most of my time trying to discover what’s possible UI-wise, mirroring the iPhone UI as closely as possible.

This demo is a sneak peak into what LaunchPad will end up looking like and how it’s UI will function. The backend development is in progress right now.

Take a look and give me your comments.
http://matthewkrivanek.com/launchpad/

The fact Apple has decided not to allow development of applications on the iPhone by 3rd party developers has some people a little perturbed. Rather than releasing an SDK and allowing native code development on the iPhone, Apple’s solution is for developer’s to write Web 2.0 applications which will run on the phone’s browser, Safari 3.

This definitely poses some issues regarding accessibility of the applications–people will first have to open Safari, then navigate via bookmarks just to get to the 3rd party web apps developers create.

Not to mention, how will people find out about these apps? Sites such as iphoneapplicationlist.com have already started posting links to apps that are being written. But even then, there needs to be an easier way.

Sounds like I’ve got an idea for a web app… more soon.

I had the pleasure of attending Atlanta Magazine’s annual Best of Atlanta Party. This event offered more than 60 of the city’s finest restaurants (picked by Atlanta Magazine’s editors and readers). Not to mention 12+ open bars, door prizes, silent auction, etc, etc, etc.

While there were the finest/classiest/trendiest/exotic restaurants in Atlanta there, I had the pleasure of enjoying a truly southern tradition–the good ‘ole call your mama comfort food of Waffle House. Let it be known, Wa-Ho, you stand with the best of them. Long live scattered, covered, and smothered hash browns!

Adium, truly the Swiss Army knife of messaging and the Mac equivalent of Trillian, has finally gone gold. I’ve been using it for the past 20 or so betas versions of v1. It works. It’s free. Awesome upgrade. Get it.