Tag Archives: iPhone

The Ultimate iPhone Dock?

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At the moment I don’t have a dock for my iPhone, while it is not essential that I have one, I still want one! I have come across some really geeky ones, sleek ones and multifunctional ones.

I just found this one and had to share it.

This one was made entirely from cutlery which is pretty cool, I found it here.

Last year we tried this one in the office, which was not only a holder but a more functional dock charger, speaker and light. Never again.

The product was faulty, we end up sending it back. When they tested similar models and other units they also found them to be faulty. The speakers buzzed at all volumes of sound and there was some red goo inside the light bulb bracket. Suggestion – try it out before you leave the shop!

So for all the iPhone users which docks do you use? Or what ones have you seen that work well?

Yelling at my car stereo

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I recently bought a new car stereo and CD player, and wooed by the blurb on the box, bought one with blutooth capability for hands free mobile phone calls (have iPhone, so that should work) as well as wireless playing songs from my iPhone.

The latter works so well but occasionally freaks me out by switching itself on and playing a random choice of songs all by itself. I don’t know what kind of settings I’ve got on, but I swear, I get in the car and the next thing I know is that John Mayer or Pink or Pantera or my sons incomprehensible Spanish death-metal come blaring out of the car speakers.

But as a hands-free car kit, it’s a dead loss. I can hear my caller brilliantly, but they can barely hear me so I spend the call yelling at my stereo. I’m not even sure that there’s a microphone in the stereo, so them I try yelling at the iPhone (does it use it’s microphone to pick up what I’m saying????? Dunno, the instructions booklet left me none the wiser.)

End result, tire of yelling very quickly and purchase a “real” hands free car-kit. It’s a Contour, and it clips to your sun-visor. It has a microphone on the end of a little swing out boom, so you can point it towards your mouth, and also volume control.

And what really gets me, is although it comes with a charger (obviously runs off a battery), I’ve only had to charge it up once in nearly 6 months!! How come??? I know I may only use it 3 or 4 times a week, but still, pretty amazing battery power.

Best iPhone apps to learn Japanese – a beginner’s perspective

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Japanese on the iPhone

Are you keen to learn Japanese on your iPhone? As a beginner you might look at basic phrases as well as Hiragana and Katakana. More advanced learners might want to further their Kanji and JLPT (Japnaese Language Proficiency Test) skills. Below are a couple of hints for what to look for and avoid when purchasing Japanese learning apps.

Basic Phrase Apps = thumbs down 🙁

Your first stop is probably to want pick up a few phrases and get a feel for the spoken word. Hearing pronunciation of words and phrases is a good general introduction and will help prepare you for a native context. Real-life situations like TV shows and overseas students are perfect for tuning your ear to Japanese and a much richer source compared with the limited selection of iPhone Japanese phrase learning apps. Most combine a poorly recorded audible short phrase with an english letter pronunciation, called ‘Romaji’. While it may seem easy at first, Romaji is a pretty clumsy system to represent the language and ultimately useless in communication with native speakers, i.e. “What time is it?” is read “Ima nanji desuka”, opposed to the native character set of Kanji, Hiragana and Katakana, which brings us to the next set of apps…

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Example App: “J Phrases”

Hiragana and Katagana Apps = Thumbs UP! 🙂

Hiragana and Katagana apps are where the iPhone really shines. Beginners of Japanese are usually quite daunted (or excited!) by the huge variety of new characters to learn. Hiragana and Katakana are two sets ‘alphabets’, and the first step is to memorize the shape and pronunciation of each ‘letter’. Quick and punchy quiz games like ‘Study Japanese’ (below) are both enjoyable and effective. Conversely, I’d recommend staying away from conventional simple ‘flash card’ games that limit interactivity and quickly lose appeal.

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Example Kana game “Study Japanese”

A Good Dictionary App

The “Japanese” dictionary app (below) is a touch pricey at over $10AU, but well worth the investment for a one-stop resource for all levels of Japanese learners.

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“Japanese” Dictionary App

Conclusion (just the beginning, really)

The most important first step in learning Japanese is to HAVE FUN! Seek apps and games that will keep your interest and teach you at your level, not over it. Come back when you’ve mastered Kana to find out about Kanji and JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) apps. See you then!

iPhone Apps for Researchers

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‘iPhone apps for researchers’ Found through CoolThings@UOW.

Personally I use Evernote (both iPhone app and web version) not only to keep track of my of class notes but also the completely random things I find (eg recipes a friends show me, random newspaper articles and reminders to look things up). I also quite like the feature of integrating with Twitter, where Tweets can be saved (Ah simple short note reminders). Best of all it’s free!