Watch More College Football on iOS

If your your favorite college team is playing and isn't shown on TV in your area, or if your team is on TV but you are away from home, you might think your only option is checking the score on your iPhone. However, if your carrier is one of the TV providers that supports WatchESPN, chances are good that you may be able to watch your game in the WatchESPN app for the iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch. WatchESPN streams a multitude of full games you can't see on regular TV. (It also streams soccer matches, NASCAR races, baseball, basketball, etc., even sports like field hockey and cricket.)

If you're at home and want to watch your team on the big screen, the Apple TV now has the WatchESPN app. For a $100 one-time cost, if you went to a small school like I did, and want a chance to watch your team play more often, this is the way to go.

Enjoy.

 

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iPhone 5C or iPhone 5S?

A Choice to Make

Today Apple announced the new iPhone 5C and iPhone 5S at their special event. Whether you are looking to buy your first iPhone or are considering upgrading from an older iPhone 4 or iPhone 4S, you now have to make a choice. Do you go with the less expensive (by $100) iPhone 5C or the more powerful iPhone 5S. I'm going to try to give you some guidance based on my understanding of the benefits of each.

iPhone 5C

The iPhone 5C is pretty much the iPhone 5 in a plastic case. As an owner of an iPhone 5, that's a pretty good phone. It has some key advantages over the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S:

• Larger screen - This is more advantageous than you think. The extra real estate gives you more apps on your primary home screen and, in general, makes a big difference in apps.
• LTE - This is one of the biggest advantages. Web browsing, downloads, etc. are much faster.
• Speed - The 5C has a faster processor than the 4S. If your have an iPhone 4, you will probably notice a significant difference in speed.

If you are planning on using your phone primarily for talking, texting, browsing the web, checking Facebook or Twitter, managing your calendar and to-do list, and playing occasional casual games, this is probably the right choice.

iPhone 5S

The iPhone 5S has some advantages over the iPhone 5C if you need them.

• Speed - This is not the speed I talked about above. This is serious speed, the kind that you would use for processing video or playing graphically-intense games.
• Camera - Even with just 8 megapixels like the iPhone 5, the camera has some major improvements over the iPhone 5 that the iPhone 5C doesn't have, mostly to give you better quality photos in low light. The f/2.2 aperture, the larger pixels, and the True Tone flash. These amount to less noise and better color in low light.
• Fingerprint sensor - The fingerprint sensor should make securing your iPhone much simpler and unlocking it much quicker (and possibly safer if you have to make an emergency call when driving). Also, when you decide to purchase a song, app, etc. on iTunes, you won't have to enter your iTunes password.

The iPhone 5S is the phone to get if you are a power user, a serious mobile game player, or want the advantages of the improved camera.

Are you looking to buy one of the new iPhones? If so, which one?

 

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Draft and Manage Your Yahoo Fantasy Football Team on the Go

If you are in a Yahoo fantasy football league, drafting and managing your line-up is possible on the go. This is true with other fantasy league apps as well, but both of my teams are with Yahoo.

The biggest feature of the updated app is the ability to participate in live drafts and mock drafts on your iPhone or iPad, provided that you use a standard draft (i.e., a snake draft). Auction drafts aren't currently supported in the iOS app. If you are away at your kids' ball game or sitting in a sports bar eating wings with your league, this is a good option. I used my iPad to draft in one of my leagues and it worked very well. The only problem I had was not being able to scroll to the latest chat messages when the chat window filled up. The drafting part gave me no problems and was simple to do.

The new UI makes managing your team easy too. In the past, you had to drag and drop players into the right places in your lineup. This was hard on a small iPhone screen. In the updated app, you click a pencil on a player you want to swap out and it pops up a window that allows you to select who to swap him with.

Many other things are similar to the past version. You can see your schedule, send messages, research players, add and drop players, and even trade players. If you are in a Yahoo fantasy league, you can fit in the management of your team when your standing in line at lunch or even...er, otherwise occupied. There are no excuses for abandoning your team so manage well, my friends. Manage well.

 

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Take Photos of Lightning with Your iPhone

Taking a photo of lightning is difficult because of the whole timing thing: You don't know when it's coming or exactly where. Photographers typically use a DSLR camera on a tripod with a slow shutter speed. However, if you have your iPhone, and no tripod, how do you get a picture of lightning?

Enter iLightningCam, an app that will take a picture of lighning when it strikes. You simply open the app and point your iPhone's camera to the sky. When the app "sees" lightning, it takes a picture. It will work with either bolts of lightning or sheet lightning. I used it to capture the sheet lighning in the above photo, which happened to be behind a tree and create a nice silhouette. I hope to capture a lightning bolt at some point.

Here are a couple of tips if you decide to use it:

• Be careful. Don't go out if lighning is all around you.
• Even though you don't need a tripod, try to brace your arms on something as you point your camera. This will help prevent a blurry photo. I brace my elbows against my abdomin.

 

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Managing a Busy Life

I haven't blogged in a while because things have been crazy-busy. This doesn't mean I haven't been using my iPhone and iPad, however. In fact, they've been critical tools in managing all that I have to do. One of the most critical apps that helps me manage it all is Appigo Todo.

To keep up with the crazy schedule, I use the built-in calendar on my iPhone and iPad. My iOS calendar is synced with Google Calendar so that I can enter calendar entries anywhere that I have access to a browser, such as at work. It's good have your calendar always with you on your iPhone, but sometimes it's nice to use a full keyboard for quick entry.

For quick, temporary notes, things I need to remember for a short time I use Write on both my iPhone and iPad. It's simple and focuses on entry, not organization and the notes sync between my two devices. If I want to keep a note long-term and organize it, I export it to Evernote by tapping Save in Evernote within Write, which is far more convenient than copying the text and pasting it in a new Evernote note.

All of these are essential to me because I know I can't trust my memory. If I don't write it down, I forget what to do, where to be, or some other important fact. What do you use to manage your busy life?

 

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An Artistic HDR Look for Your Photos

High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography combines multiple photos at different exposures to create a single photo with enough contrast that lighter areas and darker areas of the photo both look good. The iPhone has the ability to do with the included Camera app. There are also other apps, such as Pro HDR and True HDR that do a much better job of this.

Many photographers will use an HDR post-processing technique called tone mapping to achieve very artistic, even surreal looks for their photos. Often these photos can have painting-like qualities to them. However, to achieve a tone-mapped or even realistic HDR look has typically required the following:

1. A PC or Mac, sometimes using an expensive app.
2. Two or three photos of the same subject, taken one after another, preferably with a tri-pod. Some cameras, especially DSLRs, have the ability to do this automatically using a feature called autobracketing.

Integrate Your Fitness Apps for Less Data Entry

The iPhone, because of its fits-in-your-pocket size and because of its GPS, is great for tracking your fitness, whether it's what you eat or what you burn. I use RunKeeper, and sometimes Zombies, Run! to track my walking (or my rare and brief running). However, I use Lose It! To track my food intake and my exercise, to try to stay in a calorie budget and lose weight.

That's a number of apps with redundant information in them. Much of my exercise gets recorded in either RunKeeper or Zombies, Run! And also gets recorded in Lose It! I hate entering the same thing twice. you probably do too. If you have an account with each of the services behind these apps, however, you start RunKeeper or Zombies, Run! and have your caloric expenditure automatically show up in Lose It!

Here's how I have it set up:

And here's how to do it:

• Sync Zombies, Run to RunKeeper
• Sync RunKeeper to Lose It!

Happy syncing!

 

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