Last Saturday my wife and I traveled to NYC to see the Phantom of the Opera. Here are some of the ways we used our iPhones to assist us on the trip.
Prior to leaving I located parking garages near the Majestic Theater and emailed the directions from Google Maps to my iPhone. This way I would have the link on my phone and I would only need to touch it in the email and the directions would open up in the map application.
I used the camera on my iPhone to take some pictures of the theater and email them to family and friends.
After the play I used Yelp and Siri to read reviews on restaurants in the area. This was useful because it was raining very hard in the city and we wanted to limit our time walking around trying to find a good place to eat. We settled on John's Pizzeria. They make delicious thin crust pizza. It is located directly across the street from the Majestic Theater.
While at dinner one of our daughters called us to tell us that the power had gone off at home. On our way out of the city our other daughter texted us from her iPod Touch, using Textfree Unlimited, to tell us that power had been restored.
On our way home we had to take the first exit out of the Lincoln Tunnel to get gas. We found a gas station right away but the attendant gave us bad directions to get back the NJ Turpike. We got lost. I used the iPhone's map application to find directions home. It worked beautifully. I was very thankful for the iPhone at that moment.
Throughout the day we checked our email, read the news while waiting, and I checked my Google Reader and Twitter feeds. Is the iPhone needed for a trip to NYC, no, but it sure made the trip easier, allowed us to share the experience with others, and got us out of a jam.
The feud between Cablevision and WABC came to a peak today as WABC was pulled from Cablevision’s line up. Apparently the two companies could not agree on fees to be paid between the two companies. Who is the big loser? The customers who subscribe to Cablevision’s service. What can customers do about it other than write letters or make phone calls to each company’s headquarters? Not much. The two big babies want more than the billions they are already making. How does this feud tie into Apple's iPad? Let me explain.
I believe Apple is positioning the iPad to be a device for people to consume media on, i.e. television, movies, books, magazines, and newspapers. I believe eventually they will be successful in shifting people from their current media diet to a robust electronic diet. The same way Apple has taken control of the music industry it will become the dominate player in all forms of media. In my mind it is troublesome when a few people control the flow of vast amounts of information. In no way do I think Apple has evil intent or even wants to control the media industry. I think Steve Jobs and company want to create a device that will be easy to use and enjoyable to watch shows and read books on. A byproduct of the iPad's success will be a further shifting from print media to electronic media. As this shift happens someone has to control the pipes. As Cablevision and WABC control the pipes and have turned them off for millions of people tonight, the same could happen in the future with all forms of media.
I am not sure how long the shift will take for all major media to be in an electronic format delivered over the Internet, but anyone who reads the news can see that it is happening. I believe the iPad will be the device that accelerates this shift. What does that mean for the future?
After all our books are in electronic format who will control what can and cannot be sold. It won't be the publisher per say, but the person who delivers the e-book to the consumer. If the NY Times, as it seems very likely, has a subscription for the iPad, it will eventually give up control of the delivery of their content to the consumer. As the media companies merge over time, a small amount of people could potentially control most if not all of our media. I am a big fan of electronic media, and consume almost all of my media via the Internet. I think the Internet has been a tremendous medium to deliver vast amounts of content to the masses. I am able to read and see things I would never had been able to even just a few years ago. But electronic media is easy to control and manipulate. The reformers were able to get around restrictions in Iran via Twitter, but think about how that government reacted to the protests. They shut down all kinds of access. Will those of us who eschew the virtues of all things technological (myself included) come to rue the day when all our access to media is in the hands of a few large corporations?
Below is a video about a University of Texas professor using Twitter as part of classroom discussions. Using their cell phones or computers students can post to Twitter and the professor has these responses projected onto a screen in the front of the room. Nowhere in the video does it discuss the interaction between the live in-class lecture and the Twitter posts.
I like the idea that students can post to Twitter, as this probably provides a forum for shy students to provide some input into the class discussion (A point brought out by a few of the students in the video). I also thought it was interesting how the professor participated in one of the classroom lectures via Twitter when she was out of town. The TA led the class but the professor engaged the students in her Twitter posts. That is a nice use of technology.
At the same time I find the 140 character limit of Twitter to be frustrating. The limit makes me feel like I am having a bunch of conversations that get cut off midway through the discussion. Maybe I will feel differently in time as I just started using Twitter with any regularity. I do like the real time nature of Twitter (Last night's updates on the Chile earthquake where way ahead of the mainstream media). I find the hash tags (#) and @ symbols mixed within posts to be frustrating. I have a programming background and understand characters and such, but what about the non-geek world? Can we come up with a Twitter-like experience that is real time, but allows more characters and eliminates these ( #@!&) symbols in the post?
Does Twitter or any real-time feed have a place in education?
