I switched to Verizon on an iPhone 5 from an AT&T iPhone 4S. I never had issues with dropped calls around the Boston and Nashua areas. I had weak signals but very few dropped calls.
The new iPhone 5 just ends calls occasionally. It’s not a dropped call. It suddenly just ends a call as if it were never on one. Sometimes this is actually a feature.
My thanks to this week’s sponsor: Scratch by Karbon. I love this app and use it every day. I’ve written about it a couple of times, even before they were a sponsor. Scratch is the fastest way I know to create text notes in Dropbox. If you’re a markdown fiend like me, it even provides specialized keys for creating MD formatted text.
“Great ideas need to be captured immediately. Scratch for iPhone cuts through the barriers of note taking and gives you a clean slate to get your idea down fast.
This post at Loop Insight about AT&T’s record iPhone 5 sales caught my attention. Going by my acquaintances and Twitter searches, I’m seeing a large number of existing AT&T users switching to Verizon for the first time.
I’ve been with AT&T since launch day of the first iPhone. I’ve graciously paid AT&T about $9,000 in service fees since that first iPhone as a consequence of a perpetually renewed family plan. I live and work around Boston and AT&T has been inferior to Verizon but the iPhone was worth the weaker signal.
I provided a quick review of the latest update to Drafts for iOS yesterday. Within hours there was an update to a similar app, Scratch.1 Of course, I took a look.
The Speed of Text Scratch is one of a new generation of iOS apps, the quick entry apps. Drafts and Launch Center Pro are good examples and I like where this trend is going.
Until Drafts and Scratch, an index card was the fastest way for me to take a note.
Textastic on iPad is great. No reason to suspect the iPhone version would be any less than awesome.1
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UPDATE: I failed to define my limitations at work. I’m stuck on Windows and must go through Exchange. My iPhone connects to corporate Exchange. I have no Mac access to Exchange email. Sorry for the confusion.
My job requires that I respond to urgent system outages in a timely manner. Fortunately “urgent” is well defined and does not happen often. But I do need to know when it happens. As a result I have my iPhone set to alert me of email messages.
I like the new genre of quick entry note apps like Drafts and Scratch. It's a great concept. Don't load my entire note collection. Don't waste time refreshing data. Just take a note NOW. I don't want to add a title. I want as few barriers as possible to get my note down and I want it added to my primary list of notes.
The Drafts iPhone app 1 provides a quick action to send a note to Dropbox but it requires me to use the Apps/Drafts folder and not the folder where I keep all of my notes.
I like Launch Center Pro by AppCubby but I'm disappointed by how few apps have any URL schemes and how basic their url schemes are.
My favorite two features of Launch Center Pro are the custom input popups and the integration with the Bang On app (an app with a good URL scheme).
For example, here's how to configure a search for BeerAdvocate.com
Here's what the Launch Center Pro input panel looks like:
I can't remember where I heard about it, but I really like the Radiolab app 1. It's a clever take on a podcast streaming app for the public radio show Radiolab but it does more than present an episode list. It's an interactive toy for people that love Radiolab.
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Andrew Peters has posted his solution to my iPhone battery problem. He was kind enough to contact me through Twitter and offered his expert advice freely. I can't say how he comes by his expert advice. Use your imagination.
Needless to say, I am very thankful for his assistance. His post is thoughtful and complete. It also describes his experience with what does and does not drain an iPhone battery. True Genius.
