I was quite happy with the new iPhone 3GS features like video and voice control. At least I could enjoy those without the effort that I have to put in with the Nike+

At least I’ve christened the new trainers.

I’ve often said that the additions to the iPhone in 3.0 and 3GS are so subtle you often struggle to list the new features when someone asks. It is usually the case that you end up using a new feature and then realise that it wasn’t there before. I think that’s kind of the point. It is organic development in the sense that it feels natural.

One that snuck in under my radar was Nike+ integration. I only spotted it while digging around in the Preferences. I’ve not used my Nike kit for a while having lost my old Nano (which was bought purely for the Nike+) to Emily when she lost her own iPod (again, kids eh).

I have a personal trainer who visits me weekly and has often criticised my old beat up trainers. I guess that this is a good excuse to get some new ones. I feel a trip to Decathlon coming up.

I’ve always had an on off relationship with video. I have a few holiday sequences much of which is from some time back and the edited footage is on VCD with the source long since deleted (I still have all the original footage on tape). One project that I have always been meaning to tackle is getting all my pre-Mini DV footage on to a an editable format, Its currently on VHS-C. I did capture it once on a PC in the early days of home editing but my equipment wasn’t up to the task. It was laborious and I had terrible audio syncing issues. But I digress, this isn’t the reason for this post.

One of the reasons I mentioned the old footage is down to the fact that from 1991 onwards I had a reason to film and much of that early footage is the kids growing up. Of late I’ve not really had anything worthy of recording. In addition the whole process of image capture, transfer, edit, publish hasn’t had the instant appeal that I’ve enjoyed with my photography. With the new iPhone 3GS I’ve been looking for an excuse to use the video and YouTube upload feature. It has also raised the old quandary of YouTube or MobileMe. You’ll note that from my previous sentence I’ve decided to go with YouTube. I put some bits on MobileMe just to try out but on the whole I just find it easier to link site like Flickr and YouTube to other sites such as this blog. The YouTube Channel is in the ‘My Sites’ links to the right. I have no doubt that much of what I upload will be throwaway crap but maybe it will spark me to move on and do some better stuff. If I do it will have to include the purchase of a HD camera. Those who know me will be aware that my current camera has mainly been used for work and promotional footage and my most recent project was blighted by an annoying squeak from the internal mechanism that the mic was picking up.

Spielberg? Maybe not but lets see where it takes up. Now I just need to find something to film.

When people ask me about the new iPhone 3GS the feature that gets shown least is the voice control. Not that it’s not notable but because I just forget its there. Having said that when I have used it (when I remember) it is very good. I’m amazed at how accurate it is even with a lot of background noise. It also seems very tolerant to regional accents.

I have however had had a problem with similar names. No matter how much I tried to pronounce Jayne Smith it always came up with James Smith. It wasn’t until I realised that the leading S of Smith was causing the problem and causing Jayne to sound like James. The solution was very simple. Instead of saying “Dial Jayne Smith Mobile” I just said “Dial Jayne Mobile”. Luckily I don’t have any other Jaynes in my phone, or Janes for that matter but if I did I suspect that at that point I would be told of the multiple matches and I could clarify with a full name in the knowledge that James Smith was no longer in the possible results.

I didn’t find any instructions on voice control in the box but the following is available on the Apple support site.

Call someone in contacts:
Say “call” or “dial,” then say the name of the person. If the person has more than one phone number, you can add “home” or “mobile,” for example.

Dial a number:
Say “call” or “dial,” then say the number.

Make a correction:
Say “wrong,” “not that one,” “not that,” “no,” or “nope.”

Control music playback:
Say “play,” or “play music.” To pause, say “pause,” or “pause music.” You can also say “next song” or “previous song.”

Play an album, artist, or playlist:
Say “play,” then say “album,” “artist,” or “playlist” and the name.

Shuffle the current playlist:
Say “shuffle.”

Find out more about the currently playing song:
Say “what’s playing,” “what song is this,” “who sings this song,” or “who is this song by.”

Use Genius to play similar songs:
Say “Genius,” “play more like this,” or “play more songs like this.”

Cancel Voice Control:
Say “cancel.”

For best results:

• Speak into the iPhone microphone as if you were making a phone call. Or use the microphone in the included headset.
• Speak clearly and naturally.
• Say only iPhone commands and names, and numbers. Pause slightly in between.
• Use full names.

By default, Voice Control expects you to speak voice commands in the language that’s set for iPhone (the General > International > Language setting). The Voice Control settings let you change the language for speaking voice commands. Some languages are available in different dialects or accents.

Change language or country:
In Settings, choose General > International > Voice Control and tap the language or country.

Voice Control for the iPod application is always on, but for security you can prevent voice dialing when iPhone is locked.

Prevent voice dialing when iPhone is locked:
In Settings, choose General > Passcode Lock and turn Voice Dial off. Unlock iPhone to use voice dialing.

With 32GB being rolled out on the iPhone I thought I’d write up a little gotcha that has a very simple solution.

For some time now I’ve been without my 60GB iPod. Since it was stolen I never replaced it and I’d got by with a selection of playlists on my 16GB 3G iPhone. Now with a 32GB 3GS getting all my music on there was tantalisingly in range.

I reconfigured my sync settings in iTunes and took a glance at what I needed space wise for the few videos, apps and photos that were already on there. In music I selected to sync my full library and started a sync. I was disappointed that I was told that I still hadn’t enough room. I was sure that I hadn’t got my mental calculation wrong on space requirements and I could see that I only needed to find around 22GB as shown in iTunes at the bottom of my music library. Still I went about making sure and told iTunes to only sync checked songs and videos. I then unchecked all the rubbish that had accumulated in my library over the years that I really didn’t need but had never bothered my in the past with 60GB of room.

Still not enough room.

I reprocessed some Apple Loss-less files down to iTunes Plus and with that I just managed to get the sync going. It was then I found the culprit. As the sync started and I saw what was being transferred I saw a whole raft of audio and video podcasts being transfereed. I have my podcasts set to sync the latest 5 new podcasts and I could see that these were old ones being transferred. Checking my settings I then noticed that I had a number of smart playlists that were picking up on podcasts and now I was syncing all music and playlists it was causing the unwanted podcasts to be transferred.

The solution was easy. Either delete the smart playlist or edit it and add “Podcast” is “Not True”.

This tip applies to iPod Touch also but I know that a number of new 32GB iPhone users will be going through exactly what I did.