I’m living in Austria – and that means for me not to have access to all the good stuff iTunes provides to users from the US or even DE where I live nearby.
So for example I love it to read – but the books which are available in Austria via the iTunes bookstore are only ‘free’ ones – from the Project Gutenberg.
Another point is that many apps are not available outside the US store…
So – what to do?
Read more…
Found
this ad today at REWE’s homepage – wondering if Apple is aware
about… Looks like REWE sponsored all the downloads,
or?
The iPhone is still missing a view within the calendar app to show events in a week-view – and that’s really bad…
But – as we all know – ‘there’s an app for’ almost everything.
Week Calendar (for € 1.59 in the app-store) allows you to manage all your calendar-entries which you setup with your standard cal-app and you can of course setup new events. It’s using the standard cal-app as source. And if you create new entries in the week calendar app they are also available then in the standard cal-app – so you won’t miss any entry.
There are many shortcuts used within WeekCal to get it more convenient to use – e.g.
- double clicking toggles the view from weekly to daily and back,
- tapping and holding creates a new entry,
- swiping moves you forward or backward in the timeline…
Many possibilities to setup your ‘personal’ calender – so a highly recommended app… a must-have!
First of all – i’m editing this post with my MB Pro. I tried to do it with the iPad… but the article was too long and there are issues. Issues like the keyboard… read more:
The beginning:
Unboxing was a little bit suprising because the box was much bigger than the iPad itself. Unlike for Apple because they try to avoid too much packaging material these a days. In the box there’s of course the iPad itself and a little paper wallet containing the warrenty certificate and a sheet with infos how to proceed. And there’s the charger with the USB connection cable… But the charger wasn’t needed because of the fact that the iPad was charged fully.
Next step:
Contacting iTunes – so i had to startup my MB pro and connect my iPad via the USB-cable.
Setup:
Setting up the iPad is easy at all. After connection iTunes automatically starts up and the first backup of the device takes place. Select the content you want (don’t forget to get iBooks from the iTunes store!) and organize the apps with the designated tool in iTunes. Really easy – and for those of us already owning a iPhone / iPod – nothing new.
Content:
Yes – that’s the point i stick to. iBooks only shows up FREE books which are Project Gutenberg related – nothing else. But I’ve heard that ‘Random House’ already has a signed up contract with Apple for their books to be available within the Austrian Apple-Store. We’ll have to wait..
Movies? – No movies there, no TV-series. Only podcasts.
Alternative contents:
You are able to put your own videos into iTunes – this is what I’ve done before the iPad – this is what I’ll do now 🙂
Books? Well – use Stanza – this app allows you to add ePub documents which are available through the internet. And of course PDFs. But PDFs are not so nice to be handled within the iPad as eBooks are.
Differences to the iPhone:
There are differences.
Safari. There’s no ‘Search within this page’ feature as you have on the MB Pro. I’m missing it really.
But:
I – and my family – love the iPad. For reading. Surfing. Watching movies. Using Apps.
It’s so easy to browse the content you want. Flash? Not missing at all. Most of the internet sites I’m used to visit already switched to HTML5. Videos are available… Ads are not missed.
You’re able to write emails – if they aren’t too long. You’re able to post on your blog – if the article isn’t too long. There are things you can do with the iPad perfectly – others are… well – not horrible… but simply not convenient.
Give it away again? No. Never. 🙂
Update:
All the issues I had are solved by giving the iPad settings a closer look. Settings I’ve done month’s ago on the iPhone 🙂
Zuerst mal: Frohe Ostern!
Tja – und da dachte ich mir heute morgen doch gleich ich gönn’ mir was vom iTunes Shop. Eigentlich nicht mir – sondern es sollte ein Geschenk werden.
Recht einfach dachte ich mir – iTunes bietet da ja eine tolle Möglichkeit per Email Geschenke zu verteilen… aber die Rechnung hab’ ich heute offenbar ohne iTunes gemacht. Meine MasterCard war letztes Monat abgelaufen – und so musste ich heute meine neue bei Apple aktivieren. Doch iTunes weigerte sich beharrlich auch nur irgendeine meiner Kreditkarten anzunehmen.
Also raffte ich mich dazu auf den Support von Apple per Mail zu kontaktieren – garantierte Rückantwort innerhalb von 24h. Zuerst erhielt ich die übliche Mail mit der Bestätigung dass sie ein Mail von mir erhalten hätten – wunderbar, dachte ich mir –> damit hätten sie jetzt wohl mehr als 24h Zeit.
Aber falsch gedacht – kurz darauf erhielt ich doch gleich eine persönliche Mail; recht freundlich gehalten mit der Bitte doch ein paar Screenshots mit Erklärung der getätigten Schritte zu übersenden. Das hab’ ich dann natürlich auch gleich erledigt.
Gleich nach Zusendung der Screenshots erhielt ich ein weiteres Mail – und dieses spricht für sich:
Manche sind Ihrer Zeit voraus...
Also dann: Frohe Weihnachten und einen guten Rutsch!
🙂
Update:
Das Problem wurde inzwischen schnell und kompetent behoben!
You realized that there have been less entries in my blog over the last days?
Yes – you’re right… and it’s all because of ‘Flight Control’
FlightControl
I’m in fact not a gamer – just sometimes I like it to play around with new games… but never for a long period.
Well – with Flight Control maybe this will change… I’m playing around with this game now for several days and it is still pure fun 🙂
...the so called 'iPhone' killer...
You remember the last weeks? Yeah! Palm Pre – the so called iPhone killer – was presented in US.
But what makes it to the iPhone killer?
The absence of a SIM card slot?
So – ok it’s working in US with SPRINT as provider without a SIM card… but what about the ROW?
Calls over skype via a public hotspot 😉
Ah! I’ve to call my customer regarding this big deal we are going to make – where the hell is the next McDonalds with a public hotspot??
So – for sure – to be a phone you have to get it working with SIM cards… specially for the ROW…
Syncing music & photos via iTunes?
And what about their press infos about syncing with iTunes?
Well – as far as I know – iTunes is property of Apple (funny, yeah?)… and the Palm Pre isn’t.
So – ok it may work now to sync it via iTunes… but they can’t really be so naive to believe Apple would tolerate this situation in the future – are they?
So I guess with one of the next updates Apple pushes out the Palm Pre would be also pushed out…
Memory – 8GB…
Well 8GB are really not too less – but to be a iPhone killer you also should have a version with more memory available, should’nt you? There is also a version of the new iPhone 3Gs available with 32GB for those of us who also like to come along with their ‘little’ iTunes libraray…
And last but not least – iPhone 3Gs was announced these a days – and since this point it seems to be clear what we can think of a gadget which is called a ‘iPhone killer’.
Update:
Apple on unsupported third-party media players
Rowmote 1.5 - works like a charm
After a few weeks of testing Rowmote now I’m really happy with this toolset.
I never – never! – had any kind of problems with the application. Since I’ve started using it the app has updated continuatly (now I’m using version 1.5) -installation process was really easy and I never had to do it manually! Once connected to the MBP I was notified about the availability of a new version (Rowmote helper – this part runs on the MBP). On the iPhone side updates have been pushed via the AppStore update functionality for applications.
Also very convenient: not updating the Rowmote Helper tool does NOT mean not to be able using it anymore – it still worked like a charm.
Rowmote at iTunes
Rowmote Home