group app icons and find yourself less rather than more organized

I love the iPhone and use almost all the applications I've added to the thing. Sure, there are a few I got (mostly for free, but some I've purchased) but don't use. But the apps I use fill up a number of screens. And until recently I really didn't know how to organize them. Grouping them didn't quite work. I put the most-often used on the first screen but after that it's been a hodge podge. Then a new operating system for the iPhone came out, with a feature that enables you to slide a number of related apps into one generic icon; you can name the icon (e.g. "news" or "audio/radio"). This is much better but notice that the single-app icons are, well, iconic - visually memorable and distinct. But these new grouped categories are not visually distinct and I have a difficult time seeing them. At right is my first screen of apps on my phone. The clock (for setting my morning alarm) is really easy to see: it's a clock! My RunKeeper app (which I use every time I run) just really shouts: I'm a runner! But then there's "sports," "finance," "notes," "weather." Nothing distinct about them. So as it turns out it takes me just as long to find the apps, although they are neatly arranged and taxonomized, as it did before when they were all scattered about. This is perhaps not worth the complaint. But maybe among my blog's readers are Apple designers (actually I know there are): We need an upgrade of the operating system that will enable users to create the icon for the app groups. (By the way, I notice that this feature is not yet available for the iPad. I suspect this is so because the ugliness that results would look really ugly on the bigger device. I'm guessing that they're working on it.)

dropped calls? feh, try dropped phone

Beth Kwon has dropped her iPhone, and now, on her blog, discusses her sad telephonic options and fate. "Mr. Jobs, you're killing me" is a memorable line here.

Joyce in my pocket

Regular readers of this blog might recall the excitement I expressed at acquiring my Kindle, around six months ago. The excitement hasn't abated. Reading articles, magazine issues (e.g. Slate), newspapers, dissertation chapters and draft essays*, occasionally whole books on my Kindle has become part of my routine. Saves paper (especially those drafts!), carries with me most places...it's the portable library its advocates claim.

Today a new iPhone application is being released - Kindle for iPhone (and iTouch). This means merely that through my iPhone I can read all the books that are stored for me by Amazon through my Kindle account. Not ideal for, let's say, a weekend-long read of Ulysses. Nor would I ever, at home, pick up my iPhone to read these books when I can use my Kindle. But for the train, for waiting in long lines, for the days when I meant to bring my Kindle but have forgetten it, having this phone access to the library will be fabulous for me. And it would give me pleasure to ponder a page of Joyce in the supermarket. The phone these days is always in the pocket.

Here's a passage from today's NYT story:

Starting Wednesday, owners of these Apple devices can download a free application, Kindle for iPhone and iPod Touch, from Apple’s App Store. The software will give them full access to the 240,000 e-books for sale on Amazon.com, which include a majority of best sellers.

* Oh yes, as you might know, the Kindle set-up permits one to email oneself any text in familiar formats (e.g. Word, PDF, html). So if a colleague sends me the draft of a 30-page paper for a quick read and response, I can email it to myself at my @kindle account and within minutes it will be on the Kindle, readable in book-like page view.

the perfect gift

This bag is plated with solar cells. It generates enough power to charge a cell phone, iPod, or camera. It's the creation of Joe Hynek, a doctoral student in electrical engineering. It was his project in a class on experimental garment design. (Joe, if you're reading this, will you send me your prototype?)

poems in your phone

I've downloaded a few useful apps to my new iPhone. One is an RSS Reader that allows me to pick up top news and magazine items, features under various topics, as well as links to new web stuff in fields of my interest, without the strain/time of having to download these items. The thing gives a quickly loaded look at stories and links of the moment, and then I can go follow up by reading full web versions if I want. Not that the iPhone is slow to browse the web, but it's slower than this RSS feed gives me a top look.

My newest app is called "Files lite," a free program that acts as a documents folder. Yes, I can put documents (in Word, in PDF, in Excel, in HTML [e.g. saved web pages]) onto my phone! I'm working on an essay so I've put the latest draft there, which means (am I being obsessive about my time? maybe) I can re-read and ponder changes wherever I find myself stalled, waiting in line, stuck between meetings. I've also put there the text of a few poems I want to read often and really come to know. The photo here is a standard screen shot of this app in action; it's not my phone. I snapped a shot of my phone but find it's hard to take a good picture of the glassy surface of this otherwise utterly and fabulously accommodating device, the iPhone G3.

A happy shout-out to Mark Lindsay who urged me in this direction and made it all work.