Alex LuftA piece of the web dedicated to me… by me!

Finally got the long-awaited call from the AT&T rep letting me know my pre-ordered 8GB 3G iPhone has arrived.  I was transferring my number from T-Mobile, so it took about 10 minutes of waiting in the store for that to happen.  This wasn’t really as bad as I was anticipating it would be.  In fact, I was fortunate to have an AT&T rep who new what she was doing. I walked out with my brand-spankin-new iPhone in one hand - ready to make but not yet receive calls and sms - and my old and trusty RAZR V3i in another hand - capable of performing both tasks until its service was terminated.  Here are my first impretions:

• Love the new “feel” of the phone: it’s not slippery as was the first gen.
• Love 3G speeds.  So far, I have always been covered by 3G - Coral Springs/Parkland area (Florida, USA).
• The best part is the App Store: it’s simply amazing.  Besides the amazing iPhone user interface, the App Store is the best thing on the device.  I have downloaded and use the following apps:
  • Twinkle - a location-aware Twitter client (meaning you can specify to received updates from people in a 5 mile radius from you)
  • AIM: seems like this is the best IM app with a “virgin”/not jail-broken iPhone.  There is a “gatchya,” however: no push notifications.  So if I’m not running the app, it won’t let me know that I received an IM until I open up the application.  Sucks.
  • Yelp - a location-aware “places search” - that is kind of like Google Maps but also has an active community of reviewers.  I think it uses Google Maps on the iPhone as the mapping tech
  • Light - turns the screen completely white to simulate a flashlight.
  • Jott - records your voice notes, transcribes them to text, makes it available on the iPhone App or on the web.  You can even type using the keyboard if you don’t want to talk.  Voice-to-text transcription has been very good so far.  You can make to-do lists, shopping lists, and there is a messaging and social-networking feature that I don’t yet fully understand.  To mark a task as “done”, just cross it off with you finger and the effect that follows is amazing - a strikethrough line that crosses that task/item off.  This is my favorite App thus far.
  • Evernote - the best note-taking application.  I have it installed on my Mac, my Vista PC, and even my Hackintoshed Mac.  Any changes I make to my notes on the iPhone are synced up to the cloud (where I can access and edit them) and then synced back down to all my PCs. This is my second favorite app (because the “new factor” has worn off as I’ve been using it for a few months already on the dekstop).
  • Google app - the same as going to Safari and doing a Google search, but without having to do so.  Also searches your entire phone’s contents, including email and Contacts.
  • Apple Remote - an amazing app: allows you to control your iTunes library on your Mac/PC remotely.  Basically, the iPhone becomes the remote for your computer with iTunes.
  • Shazam - put a song on that you don’t know the name of and it will tell you what it is.  It will even offer to take you to the iTunes music store on the iPhone and get the song for you.
  • Urbanspoon - find restaurants based on your location and preference type.  Makes use of iPhone’s accelerometers.  Allows you to “lock in” location, cuisine type, and cost.
  • Check please - a tip calculator.  Allows you to specify cost of check and split the tip (or bill) in x different ways.
  • Save Benjis - performs an internet search to compare prices on items you’re interested in.  Think of PriceGrabber but for the iPhone - natively.

• I haven’t installed any games yet since I don’t really want to pay for them (yet).  Maybe I’ll get Tap Tap Revenge.
• One important tid-bit: during my first sync, I selected the option to restore from my previous iPhone (the first generation).  This brought back all my old iPhone’s podcasts and contacts and information but made the new iPhone really slow.  The delay time and lag between clicks/touches are enourmous.  I wiped it and started over with a clean iPhone, setting it up through iTunes.  This fixed the “slowness” problem.
• Things I’m still waiting on:
  • Native over-the-air (OTA) sync app  for Google Calendar.
  • Push for Gmail and Google Calendar.
  • 1Password: OTA sync through my.1password.com.  (1Password is a password management application for the Mac.)
  • Google Documenets synchronizer that would allow me to edit Google Docs without an internet connection on the iPhone.

What do you use?  Talk to me in the comments.

I am in the process of redesigning business cards for my personal training business - FunctionAll.  The creative question of the day is whether I should fill the card up with as much information as possible or keep it very simple and intriguing.

If I take route the vebose route, I would be filling the card up with some (if not all) of the following items:

• Company name
• Company logo
• My name
• Physical address
• Phone number
• Email address
• Website
• Information about the company and the principles behind it
• Services provided by FunctionAll

On the other hand, I would like to convey intrigue and curiosity about the company and its services and would do this by only including:

• Compay name
• Company “tagline” (motto)
• Company logo
• My name
• Website

The idea here is that I am able to convey information about my company and its services in much greater detail on the website, thus being the only place to go for the recipient of the card.  This would be analagous to Apple’s press invitations to special events: no details except the location of the event, its date, and an ever-so-slight hint (in “tagline” and/or image forms) about the event’s contents.  Sounds good so far, doesn’t it?  Well, it does have downsides.

As a friend explained to me earlier today, some (if not most) people just want to grab a card, find out what the company is all about, and make the decision right then: are they interested or not in the company and its services?  Do they keep the card or throw it away at the closest possible recycle bin without anybody seeing them do it?

I will try out both types of cards and report which one is turned out to be most successful.  Lucky for me, I can experiment in such ways.