Way Cool

I don' t have an iPhone even though I would like one, most of my family is on Verizon and the free calling just can't be a better deal for us. Soooo, that leaves me in the group of people that are longing for the moment when the Apple/AT&T alliance is completed and the iPhone is opened to the masses. We already know it has been hacked to 

log onto the Verizon network so it is just a matter of time.

I do however have an iPod Touch which is basically an iPhone sans the phone and camera. Why they dumped the camera who knows. This is a great tool from the standpoint of the photography business. I have an electronic and portable portfolio just waiting to be displayed to a possible client.

With the MobileMe account I have syncing with my calenders, favorites, contacts, and e-mail. No more retyping appointments on the iMac, and the PowerBook G4.

What the Touch also has in common with the iPhone is the ability to download applications. Most of these are $0.99, many are free and others run $1.99 to $9.99.

With the release of iWork 09 which includes Pages (word processor), Keynote (presentation app), and Numbers (spreadsheet app), some cross component functionality is being touted by the boys at Apple.

This would be the iPhone/Touch application for Keynote. What this little jewel dose is allow you to control your Keynote presentation form your iPhone or Touch. There are two orientations in the Keynote App which are

Portrait and Landscape. In the Portrait orientation you have the option of displaying speaker notes on the screen. In the Landscape orientation the next slide is displayed next to the current slide.

Using the App you simply sweep your thumb from right to left to advance the slide. If the slide has animations to it, the App automatically breaks up the slide into individual screens which will display with the next sweep. So how do you know when to sweep to the next screen? That little goofy rotating fan runs in the upper right corner unto the animation is complete.

The App does not use Bluetooth for some reason but links across a network. I guess this is good if you are running this show from a stage and the computer connected to the projector is a good distance away. The network can be a LAN or an ad hock network right off the airport (wireless) of the laptop.

So where does this Keynote App falter? Actually in a couple of places. First is the inability to make links possible on the presentation. My photo Keynote has thumbnails that link out to the larger image. This does not work and I must move though all the images to get to the one I want. The other thing is really an extension of the first. You have to go all the way through the slide show to pull up a particular slide. Apple could easily use the rotate function of the iPhone/Touch to drop into a thumbnail view so you could go directly to a slide. Who knows, I am sure the folks at Apple are working on some improvement. for now it is really cool.

Hey all, that's about it for me. I am in Columbus getting some training that I receive each year so I may or may not have a post for tomorrow. We will see.

Take care... Doug