The free Pandora app for iPhone saves the day on a road trip with my teenage son.

My 19 year old son and I were on a road trip from Orange County, California to Denver, Colorado. It was a 16 hour drive, split up into 2 days.

At nearly the midpoint in Flagstaff, Arizona, at the beginning of our second day it became apparent that there was a lot of tension through the first half of the trip since we couldn't agree on what music to listen to. Both of us wanted to figure something out to fix this.

Typically I listen to Christian Praise and Worship, or sometimes the news, or even classical. But when I'm on a road trip I want something totally out of the ordinary: I might scan to a radio station that plays 70's or 80's music that often times brings back memories from an old song from my youth or other years.

Or I might scan to a country station when on a road trip since I don't normally listen to country even though I like it, and there are a ton of country stations to be found when driving through the West. I might listen to a Christian station for a bit, but am ready to move to something else quickly since generally it doesn't suit my road trip mood. For me, loosing connection to a station and having to scan to something else is half the fun since you don't know what you're going to get.

I especially like to hear the radio stations that are local to the areas that I'm driving through, with their quirky commercials and sometimes funky DJ's. And the main point is that this is totally out of character of what I would listen to at home on my iPod, my CD collection, the radio, or Pandora (more about Pandora in a minute).

My son likes Christian Praise and Worship some too, but what he listens to the most is techno; something I can't stand because of the driving beat that gives me a headache within 2 minutes, and the repetitiveness, repetitiveness, repetitiveness.

So we basically argued every time he would put one of his techno CD's in, or when I would scan to a new radio station.

Suddenly he asked for my iPhone, which he does sometimes in order to play games that I have downloaded. He then realized I had downloaded the Pandora app onto my iPhone. I introduced him to Pandora a couple of months ago. He and I now each have our own play lists created within Pandora on our PC's and iMac at home.

We were both surprised to find that I had a strong 3G connection while driving in remote areas of the West...

He launched Pandora on my iPhone. We were both surprised to find that I had a strong 3G connection while driving in remote areas of the West, and that he was able to bring up my playlist since we had a 3G connection and Pandora remembered my login. He wasn't interested in my playlist, so he quickly created a new playlist by typing in a song name or two from his techno stuff. He was able to listen to music on my iPhone using the earphones that came with the iPhone while the iPhone remained fully charged using $30 a car charger that I keep in the car. And I was able to listen to the radio at the same time.


So for the rest of our trip we both listened to our own music while we drove through the rest of Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado. To our surprise we had a good connection on the iPhone with Pandora the entire way. We were both much happier since now I could listen to my music on the radio and he could listen to his on the iPhone.

Yet another reason why I won't travel without my handy iPhone.

My only complaint about Pandora is that it does seem to repeat the same songs quite a bit. This may have something to do with the way I am using it. Maybe I haven't set it up properly. I often have to select the option that says "Don't play this song for another month.". I think the algorithm Pandora uses needs more interaction from me to tell it what I like or don't like, so I get repeat songs until it receives my input. This is my best guess anyway, but I still really like Pandora. I find myself using my iPod a lot less at home since Pandora is always right at my fingertips at the computer.

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Jeff Kemp, MileHighTechGuy (Golden, CO), www.jeff-kemp.com.

For more info: 

Jeff Kemp's website:  http://www.jeff-kemp.com

Email Jeff, MileHighTechGuy: jeff@milehightechguy.com

Having an iPhone comes in handy during a blackout.

We live at 7500ft elevation in the foothills of the Rockies in Genesee, a community within Golden, Colorado. On Friday April 17th at 10:30pm our power went out due to the recent 3ft of heavy wet snow we had received over a period of a couple of days.

 

The power remained out for over 27 hours, which meant that all through Saturday until 1am Saturday morning we had no lights, no heat (except for our gas fireplaces), no stove (ours is electric), no refrigeration, no TV, and no land line phone. I'm sure though that the folks at Xcel Energy did their best to get everyone's power back on as quickly as possible.

Amazingly my iPhone not only had a good 3G connection so I could use it for phone calls to alert my family about the power outage, but I was also able to keep up with my email, Facebook, and LinkedIn updates throughout the weekend without skipping a beat.

With my iPhone, even though we had no power and we're buried in 3ft of snow, I was able to keep connected to the world.

An added bonus is that the iPhone gives off a good amount of light,

so I sometimes use it to get around the house instead of a flashlight since it is always at my side in it's handy holster.  In extreme cases when I really need more light I use a free iPhone application that I downloaded from iTunes some months ago aptly called 'Flashlight' that is a very simple full screen of just white that gives off an optimum amount of light, more than say, if you were looking at your email for instance. 'Flashlight' is really handy for giving you the light you need for getting your key into the door at night, or for helping you find something you dropped in the parking lot in the dark.

I didn't worry too much about running down the battery of my iPhone even though our power was out since I knew that if the battery ran too low that I could plug it into my car charger for a bit and it would be good as new. I happen to have a cigarette lighter type plug in my Nissan Xterra that works without requiring to turn on the car's engine.

Another nice feature native to the iPhone is the alarm clock. That comes in handy too when the power is out.

Okay, now that my iPhone and I can't be separated during even a blackout, I'm ready to make one of stupid those commercials where the person says: "I'm an iPhone". Oh, right, that's Microsoft's stupid commercial where they say: "I'm a PC". But you get the gist. Me and my iPhone are becoming 'one'. It's getting kind of scary.

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Jeff Kemp (Golden, CO), www.jeff-kemp.com.

For more info: 

Jeff Kemp's website:  http://www.jeff-kemp.com

Email Jeff: jeff@milehightechguy.com

Sluggish Apple iPhone 3G? We May Know The Culprit

It's been a little more than a month since the Apple iPhone 3G hit the street and users are complaining about one of its biggest selling features: speed. The phone is supposed to operate on a third-generation network, a major upgrade from other networks the iPhone operates on and an even bigger advance over the older Edge network. Unfortunately, 3G iPhone users are finding that their shiny new piece of hardware isn't all roses and faster downloads. One analyst believes the perpetrator of the problem is an Infineon chip.

The iPhone 3G sold more than 1 million units in its first weekend, based largely on the selling point of a faster network. But like the lines anxious consumers encountered at the Apple store, using the phone is taking longer than expected.

Nomura analyst Richard Windsor believes the complaints that have been cropping up on blogs and Apple's own Web site point to something more than an isolated incident.

"There are too many instances on iPhone blogs and Apple's own Web site for it to be coincidence," he wrote in a report dated Aug. 12.

"Furthermore, it is not just the U.S. but other countries as well," he also wrote in the report.

The most common complaint is that Internet speeds have been inconsistent, with a 3G network being available sometimes before users slip back onto a slower network such as Edge.

Windsor believes the problem can likely be traced to Infineon, a German chip manufacturer that provides the majority of chips to Apple for the iPhone 3G.

"We believe that these issues are typical of an immature chipset and radio protocol stack where we are almost certain that Infineon is the 3G supplier," Windsor wrote.

Meanwhile, AT&T, the exclusive carrier of the iPhone in the U.S., hasn't been confronted with the problem. In fact, the carrier has had very few complaints.

"This is not something that's high on our radar screen. It's not something we've had a lot of complaints about," said AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel.

A spokesman from Infineon declined to comment.

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Jeff Kemp (Golden, CO), www.jeff-kemp.com.